Personal Care at Home
With the help of Penn Highlands Personal Care Services serving communities throughout Northwestern/Central Pennsylvania, many elderly adults are able to continue living independently at home when otherwise they would need to move into a supported care facility.
If you would like to learn more, call 800-296-4065.
Personal Care Services at Home
About Penn Highlands Personal Care at Home Services
The goal of Penn Highlands Personal Care Services (formerly known as Community Nurses Home Support Services and Helpmates, Inc.) is for our personal caregivers to help your loved one continue living at home independently, while also maintaining their quality of life. Our experienced caregivers provide non-medical services on an hourly basis, such as assistance with activities of daily living or providing companionship to older adults and loved ones with dementia or Alzheimer’s. As part of Penn Highlands Healthcare at Home, our caregivers also can help you arrange other types of home care you may need, including at home medical services when your loved one is recovering from surgery or a hospital stay, palliative care and at home hospice services.
Personal Care Services Provided
Home attendants can provide a wide variety of customized services, depending what will help you and your loved one most.. Our well-trained, compassionate in-home personal caregivers can provide basic support for activities of daily living including:
- Personal grooming, such as bathing, shaving, getting dressed, oral care, and hair care
- Moving around the house safely and transferring from a chair, toilet or bed
- Errands, such as grocery shopping
- Preparing meals and assisting with feeding
- Household chores including light housekeeping, changing bed linens, trash removal, and laundry
- Reminders, such as to take medications
Our caregivers also provide respite care so that loved ones can get a break from caregiving duties. They stay with your loved one and provide companionship and socialization so they are never alone. Our personal caregivers are thoroughly trained to offer trusted supervision for people with all types of medical conditions, including Alzheimer’s or dementia.
Learn more about Personal Care at Home services offered by Penn Highlands and talk with our staff about available payment options by calling 800-296-4065.
FAQs
You do not need a physician’s referral to hire personal care services for your loved one. You can call Penn Highlands Healthcare at Home at 800-296-4065 and we will discuss your needs to make sure you are getting the most appropriate services. During this free assessment, we will learn about your loved one’s needs, schedule, health situation, and your budget. We will work with you to develop a customized plan that best meets your needs.
After we assess your needs and develop recommendations for what type of care and a schedule, we will assign a personal care aide who will come to your home to meet you and your loved one and start performing the tasks you have requested. Our personal care aides are selected for their compassion, trustworthiness, and skills. You will have the personal care aide or set of aides providing care who soon become trusted friends and often considered members of the family.
The main difference between home healthcare services and personal care services is whether the care needs to be provided by a medical professional, such as a home care nurse. Penn Highlands Healthcare at Home provides several different types of care in your home and we can help determine which is best for your situation, your loved one’s needs, and your budgetary or insurance considerations. Our services include:
- Home Health Care: This service provides short-term skilled nursing and therapy to help a patient recover from surgery, a severe illness, or treatment for a medical condition.
- Palliative Care: This program provides a wide range of services to meet physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of a patient and their family to achieve the highest quality of life while going through a complex or chronic condition. Palliative care serves patients who are receiving medical care for their condition and may only be needed for a particularly difficult time.
- Hospice Care: This is a loving, respectful service that helps provide pain management and care for a patient at the end of life. We are one of the few providers in central Pennsylvania to provide hospice in your home or in a skilled nursing home.
- Personal Care at Home: Non-medical personal care aides help with tasks such as meal preparation, daily living activities, and household help while providing companionship to the patient and respite for caregivers.
- Adult Day Services: Located in St. Marys, our center provides daytime supervision for adults who cannot remain at home alone while giving respite to caregivers.
Matching you with the right personal care aide is very important to us. Occasionally an aide may not be a good fit and if this is the case, we will gladly work with you to find a better fit for your family. Once you have a personal care aide you like, you can work with your aide if you would like to change their responsibilities or schedule.
Yes, Penn Highlands Personal Care at Home can provide the services described above to patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s who are able to continue living at home. Often, the most important service needed is to provide safe, trustworthy companionship that allows family members to take time off, whether that’s for a few hours or several days.
Personal care services are not covered by Medicare or other types of health insurance and are usually paid for by the patient or family. Some types of long-term care insurance may cover the cost of a personal caregiver. In addition, there are three government-funded programs that may pay for this care for eligible individuals including:
- Community Health Choices MCO Waiver
- Veterans Administration
- County Area Agency on Aging Lottery-funded OPTIONS program
Penn Highlands Personal Care Services has 9 offices, serving 19 counties in Pennsylvania. Our personal care services are offered in Armstrong, Bedford, Blair, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forrest, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, McKean, Potter, Venango, and Warren counties.
