The simple fact is many elderly Americans will eventually require some form of home care assistance. Home healthcare professionals—also known as caregivers—work with family members, community agencies, and medically-trained professionals like nurses and doctors to broaden the scope of care for seniors and provide better health outcomes. For specialized care, such as at home Alzheimer’s care, having a healthcare advocate is especially important.
If you’re ready to schedule care now, receive a free phone consultation within 24 hours here.
Health Advocates Enhance Safety
A health advocate can have a lot of value for older adults, with some immediate benefits such as improving their safety.
Trained caregivers can help families deal with the daily challenges of aging and provide the necessary support to allow older adults to remain independent for as long as possible—exactly what seniors and their families want most.
- Seniors need a qualified caregiver to look out for their best interests.
- Visiting the doctor can be an overwhelming and exhausting blur for some older adults.
- Many seniors might not be able to fully understand what the doctor says, perhaps aren’t comfortable asking questions, might not like to speak frankly about concerns and symptoms, or aren’t capable of insisting on treatments that are in their best interests.
- Most seniors need the help of a trusted relative, spouse, caregiver, or home healthcare manager to help them understand their treatment options and medical conditions as well as coordinate and communicate with their doctors to get the best care possible.
What Is A Health Advocate?
A health advocate helps seniors navigate our medical system. They can accompany seniors to appointments, talk with doctors, research health conditions, and help manage medical bills and health insurance.
If you have been caring for an older adult, this caretaker role probably sounds familiar to you. A health advocate does not need to be a trained medical professional to the same degree as a doctor. For instance, a family caregiver often does the job. And, most likely, your senior has multiple health conditions and sees a variety of doctors or specialists. Enlisting the help of a nurse coordinated Alzheimer’s caregiver would ensure that your loved one is receiving the best care, while also helping to alleviate pressure from family members.
7 Health Benefits From Having A Health Advocate
A health advocate can significantly improve an older adult’s quality of life and overall health.
That is because home healthcare advocates help by:
- Keeping track of old and new symptoms, any problems with current treatments or medications, or significant changes to discuss with the doctor.
- Helping medical professionals understand your older adult’s complete health situation and coordinating treatments to improve health problems without causing side effects or issues. And if any side effects do become an issue, working with doctors and nurses to find a solution.
- Managing current prescriptions and making sure all medications and supplements are reviewed and updated regularly.
- Going together to medical appointments, bringing up important questions for the doctor, taking notes, and making sure critical details aren’t overlooked.
- Taking plenty of time to patiently explain your senior’s health conditions, treatments, and why it is essential to follow the doctor’s instructions.
- Finding the specialists, doctors, and hospitals that meet your older adult’s treatment needs and are covered by their insurance plan.
- Dealing with health insurance—coverage questions, billing errors, claims, payments, etc.
We’re There When You Need Us
You’ll enjoy personal home healthcare plans for your loved one. We customize all our home healthcare plans to provide the best training to each caregiver regarding your senior’s specific care needs. We also take additional precautions to ensure we can provide crisis safe care for Alzheimer’s patients.
Since we are independently owned, and not part of a larger franchise system, we can proudly invest in you. For more information about Home Care Providers, click here.
Ready to schedule care? Call 714-671-6877 or contact us here to schedule a free consultation.