At-home care becoming big business as region grays

Right at Home employee Stephanie Hodge (right) assists Marjorie Moore at Moore’s South Rome residence. (Doug Walker, RN-T.com)

Rome and Floyd County’s demographics continue to reflect the growing number of aging baby boomers. More of them are opting to stay in their homes as long as possible, as opposed to leaving for assisted living centers or nursing homes.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 14.3 percent of the population in Floyd County is older than 65, 4-percent higher than the statewide senior demographic.

Jay De­Ville is the Rome franchisee owner forRight at Home — In Home Care and Assistance.

“We hire certified nurse assistants to provide care and assistance for senior adults so they can continue to have a high quality of life,” DeVille said. “It’s usually so they can retain their independence in their homes.

“That might be anything from assistance in bathing and dressing, all the way to meal preparation, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, doing the laundry, taking them to errands, whatever needs to be done so they can remain independent,” DeVille said. “For some people it’s once a week for three hours, and for others it’s 24 hours a day seven days a week and everything in between.”

Helping maintain quality of life

DeVille’s agency currently serves more than 80 clients from Dalton to Hiram. Right at Home has 90 employees, and most of them are certified nursing assistants, or CNAs.

“Our caregivers are CNAs, but we do not provide skilled nursing care. We can touch, in order to provide help from the wheelchair to the bed, we can even use a Hoyer lift, whatever it takes to help them in ambulation and transfers,” DeVille said. “However we cannot do anything considered invasive, meaning that we cannot do wound care, or give shots.”

DeVille said it is becoming evident that it is a lot less expensive to help an individual maintain their quality of life in home and use preventive care than it is to care for someone in a nursing home.

“We work real close to prevent re-hospitalizations,” DeVille said. When someone does have a hip replacement or a fall and has some kind of surgery and has gone through rehab, DeVille’s goal is to help with the transition from surgery to home care.

“The larger part is to allow people to stay in their home where they are comfortable, and where they are in familiar surroundings, rather than go to a nursing home,” DeVille said.

Government programs

The state government has created a Community Care Service Program, which is a Medicaid waiver program to permit individuals to stay at home rather than be admitted into a nursing home.

“We didn’t become a part of that until October 2009, but we have grown like wildfire in it,” DeVille said.

The state determined it would save a substantial amount of public dollars through CCSP. State health care program administrators learned many people only need about three hours of care, three to five times a week, in order to stay in their own homes.

“They’re receiving 15 hours of care a week, at that expense, versus the expense of going to the nursing home and whatever expenses are incurred there,” DeVille said.

The state estimates it is able to save more than $250 million annually through the growth of the CCSP.

Perhaps five years prior to joining CCSP, DeVille was taking calls from potential clients who realized they needed some sort of in-home care but were afraid they couldn’t afford it.

“Through CCSP we can provide it,” DeVille said. “Our commitment is we provide the same care to the Medicaid patient that we did for the private pay and the day that we’re not able to make that commitment is the day that we quit doing what we’re doing.”