Home Health Care Career Options
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
For a rewarding experience if you’re a nurse, in home health care would be a good choice. You get the opportunity to change someone’s life by caring for their needs and allowing them to stay in the area they are used to. Too often, the elderly and disabled are forced into institutionalized facilities just because they have no one left to watch out for them.
This can be traumatic for an ill person. Already, they’re thrust into a state of stress from their sickness, then they’re plopped in among alien people and surroundings. It’s been documented that one’s state of mind plays a role in their ability to heal. It’s been known for years that one’s will to live affects the state of their health.
Older people who have lost a spouse need comforting surroundings to provide a sense of stability. They may have lived in the same place for a long time and considering their age, moving them into unfamiliar surrounding may make them disoriented and have a devastating effect on their health.
You may need to take a test administered by your home state, depending on where you live. Many states do not require home health care employees to have any kind of license or certification. Most home health care workers are employed by agencies that assign them to clients who need labor. You will probably have to provide documentation to your agency if you move to another state, including evidence of licensing, certification, and training that is relevant to your position. If you seek employment through a nursing registry, similar information will need to be provided by you.
Many people have Medicare or Medicaid for their insurance. To work for either of these agencies, home health aides have to complete at least 75 hours of training. In some cases, they also must pass a competency evaluation for the company for which they are working If you are considering working for a licensed only agency only, 40 hours of training is required in most states. In addition to this, they must pass a competency exam. Many agencies require more than 40 hours of training. This will depend on the rules set by the home health care agency.
If you are planning to seek work through a nurse’s registry, you will have to provide proof of completing at least 40 hours of training for health aides in either a public vocational school or a private career school licensed by the state, or a home health agency. These requirements are in place to assure clients of the qualifications of their home health care worker.
Training sometimes can be obtained through a home health agency that you work for as an aide. To help you get training to enter a better paying field and to help recruit more workers for an industry that is growing daily these agencies will offer free or reduced training if you meet certain criteria. These agencies are not allowed to train you unless they are licensed by the state in which they operate.
You are required to have two hours of HIV/AIDS training to be employed by any home health agency or nurse’s registry. It is required that every two years you pass an hour long in-service training test on HIV/AIDS. Obtaining a current certificate in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is also required.
To work as an aide for a Medicare or Medicaid agency, employees must complete twelve hours of in-service course work each year. The time spent working on CPR training counts as part of the twelve hour requirement.
By this point, you should realize that there is actually not much education required to get into this business. Unfortunately, as a new employee, you will start at the bottom. That means “graveyard” shifts and working the holidays when everyone else is with their families. Despite the short term hardships, you will quickly fall in love with the emotional benefits.
Finding satisfaction in your job is sometimes quite rare in the workplace. However, knowing that you have given someone the opportunity to stay in a familiar environment and avoid ending up with strangers can give you the satisfaction that you desire.
Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities; prevention of illness and injury; alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human responses; and advocacy in health care for individuals, families, communities, and populations.
- Bruno Auger
