Home health aid vs assisted living vs long term care

mvm2 · Apr 19, 2013

I work as a CNA for home health and absolutely love it. The one on one time you can have with our clients is a joy and you really get to know them. Also our agency is very flexable about how many hours you want to work and what shift you want. The have as little as 2hr shifts and 8 and 12 hr shifts. It's all up to you and what you want to do. They try their best as well to keep you as close as possible to home so traveling is not to bad. My furthest client I have now is an 18 mile round trip. takes me 20 minutes one way. I have two kids so flexablility is wonderful. We put in what hours we can work a month in advance. If there is a day we need off for something we simply cross that day off the calander and we do not have to work it or find someone to take that shift. Great that I will not have to miss any birthdays or school functions. I have not worked at a retirment home, but I would think it is a lot like LTC but you probably will not be as busy.

Good Luck any one of them would be a great job. Though I am bias to home health

studentbear, CNA · Apr 19, 2013

I have worked in both and I like them both for different reasons. If you have a Visting Angels company in your vicinity, I highly, highly recommend working for them, they are amazing. They are a franchise, but the branch where I am is truly wonderful.

Depending on the assisted living facility, it can vary from my experiences. I've worked for Bonaventure, which is a combined assisted living/retirement community. Assisted living is right in the middle of the road between LTC and retirement. Retirement is really, really low key and there is a ton of downtime. Here are some comparisons:

Assisted/Retirement

Pros: 8 hour shifts (usually have short shifts that are 4 hours, too), working with other people and lots of residents, opportunity to move up through working as a med tech, supervisors on site to help with any questions.

Cons: You're still working very hard and taking care of many residents with a similar schedule as LTC (shower/help dress/escort to breakfast) but the care is not as near as extensive/intense. Low pay: Bonaventure pays just over minimum wage unless you're a med tech, then you get around $10/hr.

Home health

Pros: Basically all of the points that mvm2 made! Home health is awesome as far as basically getting to set your own hours, taking time to get to know your client, and higher pay($10-12). Depending on the company, they may compensate your for driving between clients if it's under an hour between the two. They always compensate for on the job driving.

Cons: There can be a lot of down time and you may be bored, if your client isn't interested in interacting with you.

It can be difficult to get up to full time because hours can be really weird and split up (3 hours with client A, 5 with client B, and 1 with client C.) There can be a lack of communication between you and the office-- basically they hand/send you the care plan, talk to you about the client, and you're on your own in a clients home. I've been in some dangerous (sister using drugs) and unsanitary (cat pee, trash everywhere, ect.) conditions-- but if you talk to the office about it, they can reassign you.

You'll enjoy either one, I'm sure! :)

mvm2 · Apr 20, 2013

It can be difficult to get up to full time because hours can be really weird and split up (3 hours with client A, 5 with client B, and 1 with client C.)

So true. If you want full time it is hard to make it sometimes with home care. The little scenario is exactly what I have going on right now. 3 different clients with 2 to 3 hour shifts. Mind you this works for me because my job is for a second income, I am making a little money for the household, but being mommy is still priority #1 for me. Though I am sure that if you tell them you want more hours they will find those clients that have 8 to 12 hour shifts for you. Can you work overnight shifts? I think many Home Health are looking for people willing to do the overnights, and many of those are around 12 hour shifts as well.