Dual Certification: Certified Home Health Aide and Certified Nursing Assistant

Home care offers a great alternative to Nursing Assistants who want more freedom as well as the opportunity to get to know those they are caring for on a more personal level. Home  care is exactly that, offering basic assistance to one patient at a time who needs. Home-care provides the patient with privacy and comfort in their own home. Nursing Assistants will be performing many of the same tasks including feeding, bathing, and dressing the patients.
 
Most Nursing Assistants are interested in working for a home-care agency to seek a job with a agency. These agencies contract with the patient or their family to offer them services to be able to remain in their home rather than an assisted living facility. However, Nursing Assistants need to be aware home-care agencies generally offer additional services that they will be required to perform including assistance with paying bills, running errands, picking up medications, and taking the patient to scheduled appointments. In addition, there may be cooking and light housekeeping involved.
 
Many Nursing Assistants love home-care because it allows them to develop a schedule that works for them and they get to know their patients. Home-care generally allows you to make your own schedule. It will be reviewed by your supervisor as well as checked with the patients. Every reasonable effort is made to accommodate everyone involved. It is very likely you can customize the schedule around holidays and other events, giving you those days off.
 
Getting to know your patients in home-care is a perk. Nursing Assistants usually don’t often get to really talk in a medical facility. You sometimes can if you work in a long term care facility, but even then time is often limited and Nursing Assistants have to run to complete the workload they are given. Getting to know the patients in home-care can make the job more enjoyable. 

Since home care takes place in a person’s home with very little supervision, the background check is more intense than what is done to work in a medical facility. This is for the complete protection of the patients. You will have complete access to their home as well as be interacting with them one on one. Therefore any time of issue on your background check can keep you from being employed in home care.

Be prepared for a references and past employers to be contacted. Homecare agencies will be looking for more than the length of employment and your skills. They will want to find out if you are organized, motivated, and able to work on your own without constant supervision. They will be investigating your promptness as well as how often you call out from work, as well as the reasons why.

This is because home care agencies don’t have the volume of staff to cover your patients if you show up late or don’t show up at all. This can result in patient’s needs going unmet, the family becoming upset, or the patient can suffer an injury. That could result in patients choosing to end their contract with that home care agency and maybe filing charges against the Aide and the agency.
 
Nursing Assistants are more likely to earn more at a home health agency than in a medical facility. They are also more likely to be treated respectfully by their employer and co-workers. They want employees to be happy as this will help keep them as quality employees. Patients do not like for their aide to constantly changing. They don’t like having that many new people in and out of their home. The home-care agency has to properly balance keeping the employees and the patients happy.
 
Before accepting any employment with a home-care agency, take the time to research them with the Better Business Bureau and The Department of Health of your area. You do not want to involve yourself with any agency that does not participate in proper procedures for care of their patients. It is important to report any such issues immediately. 

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