Family Resource Home Care with Pam Stone

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

And Welcome back to answers for elders radio. Everyone, I am here with a brand new guest, a lady by the name of Pam Stone from family resource home care. Pam, welcome to the program. Thank you, says. I am happy to be here. I am really excited to learn a lot about your program is. We’re talking about aging in place in the month of April and obviously you’ve been around for a long time and you work with seniors that are aging in place at home. And just for the sake of our audience, before we get into you know what specifically you do? What do you find is probably the most common misconceptions about seniors that live that age in place, that they’re not able to do that successfully M and that they have to move right and moving for seniors can be very troublesome and, I can upset their life. So we call home anywhere you lay your head, so iry be a home that they’ve lived in for fifty years. They may have already moved to an assisted living community that they’re happy with or an independent community. It really doesn’t make any difference right where home is for our clients. Well, and I know according to numerous surveys out there that they say that ninety five percent of seniors prefer to live independently in their homes for as long as they possibly can. And and you know, really, for me, aging in place is about supporting you on what you choose to do and how you want to live for as long as possible. And and that’s the thing is making obviously your home to serve you. And one of the ways in which you guys as a service, can do is you can come in and help them with some of the daily things. It may not be so easy anymore for seniors and and I know that you guys have been a long round a long time and have an amazing staff. And so just tell me a little bit about when you come in and help. What kind of service does your home care provide? Well, we have a large scope at service. It can be from companionship if someone’s lonely and just needs some companionship to take them to an outing, sure’s shopping, something like that, or it can be more skilled care where we are actually helping with the person if they need help in the shower or, you know, just moving around like that. And then housekeeping and meal preparation and planting and working with our clients to develop, you know, what they like best, right, doing for them and give it, giving them a chance to be involved in the process as well. Right. And you know, it’s really about one of the things that I want to emphasize with is a lot of times people think will don’t I don’t want anybody coming into my house. You know, there’s that fear. It’s a fear of the unknown, of the senior and and you know, one of the things it’s great about home care agency like you and is number one. Every single caregiver that comes into your home as a consumer or is your parents home, they know their license, their bonded, they’re ensured that you can you know their trustworthy. And I always say to providers, I always say to providers, what’s the number one question a family member has in the back of their mind when they’re talking to somebody like you? And I really think it’s the trust factor. It’s can I trust you? And and and that’s the thing that I think is so important with the background that your organization has, with ten years in this in this community, is really having that foundation. So tell me a little bit about your caregivers. So our caregivers. They are our employees and we go to great lengths to vet them. And important, so important. Yes, so we do an extensive background check. And Washington State, so we’re all home care agencies, are licensed by the Department of Health and it requires every agency to do a background check and we go above and beyond what is required by the state and we hire a private firm to do, for instance, Social Security Trace. One of we check every county that our caregiver has lived and if they if you know they’re not from Washington state. And Yeah, it’s it takes a long time to do our background and checks and it takes maybe sometimes two weeks or three weeks to get a full report. But we are very, very thorough with that and we’re always thinking, you would I want this person into my mother’s home or my father’s home? Sure, so we are very confident with our characters and they’re lovely people. Yeah, now I’m just curious. Do you have do you believe in a one on one caregiver situation or you in the team approach? Sometimes it depends on different philosophies. What is your primary philosophy? Well, of course the client, the client, but really we’re also caring for the whole family. The whole Riley becomes involved and we want to know who all the different players are, whether you know you have children that are going to be adult children, they’re going to be helping out, or do have you know care manager that you’re working with, or who is your power of attorney? So we take that all into consideration. That’s important. So we are talking again to Pam stone and she is the what is your title of Director of Business Development, I guess, for Family Resource Homecare paym tell me a little bit about like the area that you serve here and in puget sound. Well, the greater puget sound area, and I like to save from I five quarter from south piers to Everett and wow, a little bit into a series. Well, and though Chris General’s Seattle value, Kirkland is a quand north bend. That’s also that’s awesome. And and you guys obviously just if I was looking to hire your service. What is kind of your your standard of how many hours minimum do you you look for to work with families? is their variance or what people well, yeah, and it pick it begins with a phone call and right we welcome all those questions and will gladly answer them. But we have a to our minimum. That’s not bad at all. It’s not. It can be done and then some. So some people use this just once a week for a couple hours, or other people were in the home few times a week and sometimes overnight. So we do a lot of respite care as well, right for families who are the primary caregivers, but they need a break something right, so we’ll come in and help them out and just for purposes. Respite care means temporary care. But maybe, for example, if you’re if you’re recovering from surgery or a heart attack or just flew, you know, have a bug. One of the things that I always emphasize to families that I work with is always set a relationship with a home care provider before you need them. And and this is something that I really find odd that people don’t understand why it’s like, and I really want to talk to the listeners out there right now, because you know, you may have a senior loved one right now that is doing great, that doesn’t need care. That could change in an instant. In an instant they could fall and break an ankle they could. You know, they could break their arm, they could get a bad flu or something and in You, as an adult child, may have to work your job. If you had a home care agency that you could just pick up the phone that was already vetted, that was your your loved one was comfortable with, that is a huge they become a team member. Now. It’s a huge thing, and I think that’s one thing that I really want to emphasize to our listeners here is that whoever you choose to go with, whether it’s family resource, home care or another agency, make sure you interview them in advance and find out what their philosophies are, how they charge and let them get to know your loved one. There’s so many things about you know your if it’s your mother or your father. You know what are the foods that they like to eat. You know what time do they eat in a day. You know what kind of medications do they take? What is their habits, what kind of you know, things that you can help with. Those are things that can go so mild in making things, you know, smooth for your family. I mean, I’m sure, Pham, don’t you agree that correct? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, perfect kids, yeah, and and and every click care plane is different and it’s tailored to the client and what their needs are. Sure, and that’s the thing that I think is so important about what you guys do. Another thing that I’m really excited about talking to you is because you’re locally owned. Is that correct? That’s correct, and I am a big supporter of home care agencies that are locally owned and managed. Not that there aren’t good franchise he’s out there. They have big there’s a lot of wonderful ones and I’m not saying that they’re not, but overall, I really believe there’s if there’s a agency that is locally owned, it’s because that person, that founder, that creator of that company, had a mission in a heart for seniors and that’s the core of everything that they do. It’s not just a business opportunity, like some of them are, unfortunately with franchise’s, and I think that goes through an every single thing that families, you know, look for. What are you finding that really gives you guys that that advantage? Well, we are connected to the community and we’ve been at we’re in our twenty two year of business and you know, we start out in Seattle and have grown. Now we have an office in Bellevue and in that commas. So we’re serving a wide range of people and and it’s not just seniors. We care for a lot of adults that I’ve maybe had a an accident, traumatic brain injury. There’s a lot of gentlemen who have been on top of their roofs and clean the gutters and they should had a fall, sure, and we’re came for them. So it’s a wide range, but the majority of our clients are seniors. Well, and you know, the thing that I think is really important is you know if you’re going to hire somebody. I mean the bottom line is, how do people pay for your service? Typically it’s paid for if they have a long term care insurance policy. That possibly all pay for our services. If there are a veteran, we do have a contract with the Veterans Administration. You’ll pay for a certain amount of hours. Private pay is probably the most common. If you have a will or trust, some people draw money from that and some private insurances have of a writer that will. And do you build people monthly? Do they pay every time you visit? How does that work? It’s twice a month. Okay, so you just build them twice amount is usually what happens correct. That’s great, and we have a whole accounting team that makes sure that those bills are right and because that’s important to our clients well, and I think that really goes into the fact of being transparent and understanding about you know where is the you know where’s the money going, and because long term care can be expensive, especially if you don’t have an long term care and policy, that’s for sure. So, Pam, how do we reach you? You can reach us by calling two USD six five, four five one zero nine two, and our website is www dot family resource homecarecom. You know, I’m really excited to have you on the program and we hope to have you on again soon. Thank you saying it was pleasure. It was awesome having you. Thanks, Pam. Right