Private carer vs agency: Which home care option is right for you?

In Australia today, many seniors do not want to go to a nursing home, no matter how great their nursing services have been touted to be. They’d rather stay with their families for support or get a private carer to assist them.

This is where it gets tricky.

To get private home care, you can either browse through thousands of job boards or quiz the entire neighbourhood to find a good one you can hire. This is outside of having to understand tax laws, hourly rate management, and other things. Or you can just contact a care agency to handle everything for you.

The difference is that you hold all the cards if you hire yourself, but you’re limited to the service agreement that the agency operates, which you have to sign when you opt for one of its care packages.

This is where it gets even trickier.

While it’ll be nice to hold all the cards, are you really up for the admin work?

This blog will guide you towards the right path.

What is a private carer or support worker?

Seniors in charge of their care will have to deal with the question sooner or later. Family members taking care of their seniors will also face the same question.

“Should we hire private support workers, or go to a nursing home?”

Before we answer that question, though, let’s talk about private carers.

A private support worker or a private carer is an in-home carer who you work with for aged care support. They’re an independent carer who you can hire from referrals or off job boards, and manage by yourself. In essence, you hold all the cards in this relationship.

You tell them when to come in, you decide how much you spend on their home care services according to their hourly rate, and most importantly, you are in charge of enforcing the service agreement, which you signed with them.

A private care provider could also be one of a dedicated team of care workers affiliated to an agency, providing home care services to those who contract them. In this case, the agency holds most of the cards. They will determine how much you spend (per their care packages, which you have to select from) and the care jobs their staff will do for you. The said agency may or may not run a nursing home. If they do and your care needs graduate to needing a home, relocation is easier.

Wherever you hire your private carer from, they must fulfil the following responsibilities by default:

• Personal Care: Also known in aged care as “Assistance with Daily Living”, your hired care provider must help with tasks like bathing, grooming, dressing, toileting and other hands-on assistance that relate to your person or your loved one’s person.
• Meal preparation: They will also have to assist with or completely take over kitchen duties and feeding, depending on your care needs, to ensure that you’re well-fed and taking in the proper nutrients.
• Domestic tasks: They will handle light cleaning, laundry and tidying up tasks.
• Mobility support: They are mandated to help you or your loved elder walk and move around if this is part of your care needs.
• Companionship and emotional support: Every care plan has this at its core. It is what is referred to as compassionate care.
• Coordination with nurses or therapists: Your care worker will help coordinate your hospital visits by arranging doctors’ appointments or following care plans from therapists. Some agencies even supply care nurses for medical care.

Your carers can also provide disability support if they’re trained disability support workers. To do this, however, they need to have training in handling various types of disabilities. Some of them can even provide overnight care or respite care if you arrange it with them in advance.

One big benefit of private care services is that continuity of care is assured. If you’re at a nursing home, you can be moved from one care ward to another, with a different care provider. Private care ensures that the same people are taking care of you, even with shifting care needs.

How private care agencies work

Let’s do a quick overview of how private care agencies provide aged care services to Australians.

As stated earlier, after contacting one with your care needs, they will look through their network of experienced carers to find the right fit. Then you will agree on a care package with them, sign the service agreement, and wait for your care giver to be dispatched.

Using one guarantees you the following benefits:

• Professional standards: Providing care to clients comes first, so private care agencies make sure that the personal assistants, as well as every care giver or care nurse, are thoroughbreds. If they aren’t insured, the agency insures them to guard against mishaps (because we’re all human) and guarantee a carer recipient safe, high-quality care.
• Reliable backup: Some private home care shifts may clash with the support worker’s personal life, or with an emergency that needs the support worker assigned to a particular care recipient. In essence, things could happen that could stop your independent carer from showing up to work. An agency has guardrails against this, as there is always a personal care worker from their home care team waiting to tag in.
• Less admin for you: They will manage your support worker’s duties from start to finish: taxes, payments based on the defined hourly rate, insurance, logistics, equipment and even training. You will only receive an invoice.
• Flexible services: Many agencies can provide workers who have the bandwidth and training to provide 24-hour care, overnight care, and respite care. Some agencies can help you manage your NDIS plan or Home Care Package (HCP). And as stated earlier, some even run a care home, which means they can help you or your loved elder transition from in-home care to residential aged care. They can also link you up with disability care professionals if need be.

In essence, they do everything you’d normally do yourself if you were to handle a private carer yourself.

Conclusion: Choosing what’s right for you

With the benefits of hiring a private support worker through an agency and the benefits of hiring them yourself listed in the sections above, you now have the information you need to make your choice.

Handling the hiring yourself guarantees you continuity of care. You choose the care jobs they do and you create the service agreement they operate with. The hourly rate payment might even be lower, since you’re not paying for any admin work.

On the other hand, agencies save you the stress of vetting care providers, and handling other admin tasks. They also provide Care Quality Commission guarantees with their care services for care seekers

Whichever you decide to go with, you can fund with an NDIS plans or Home Care Packages.

And now, to answer the question: “Should you choose in-home care or residential aged care?”

If the care seeker can live well with personal care, domestic support and periodic nursing visits, and general in-home care, from a private carer or an agency care provider, then you don’t need a care home. Residential care is only more appropriate when 24/7 clinical monitoring, complex medical treatments or intensive behavioural supports are needed.

Agencies can help this transition, as stated earlier. Make sure that your choice of care management is made with foresight as you plan to enjoy your twilight years or plan for your loved elder’s twilight years.