Too Many Tricks, Need More Treats

At the beginning of the year I laid out an optimistic ten year vision for my future as a permanent caregiver. The vision was predicated on Cindy turning 65 in February, making her eligible for the state’s Home Elderly Care program. The amount of coverage I could have expands dramatically with this change, allowing me to plan and engage in a variety of projects for the next ten years.

The best laid plans often go astray. Throughout this year I actually averaged less coverage than I had in 2024, due to too many cosmic tricks being played. Perhaps I should have expected that bureaucratic channels meant Cindy’s new eligibility would not take effect until August. Unexpected were complications with existing home health aides that actually reduced our coverage for the year.

In late August I finally had expanded coverage which led me to post “Full Steam Ahead!” Alas, that coverage lasted for only one month and I have yet to find replacements due to a wide variety of “tricks” continuing to be played. I learned one lesson from this that might prove helpful when looking to hire home health aides.

I do not need full time help for my particular situation, but only being able to offer a part time position creates a problem for aides that work multiple jobs to pay their bills. We are likely to be the farthest commute for most of them, which means we are the logical choice for an aide to quit first when they need to reduce their workload for their family … or sanity. I anticipated that offering full time hours to an aide would provide the incentive needed to reduce attrition. To sweeten the deal I used a payroll provider to set a higher hourly pay rate than set by health aide agencies.

Unfortunately, my incentives do not include a benefits package. Aides that worked here part time would have to obtain health benefits through other employment. Now if someone works here full time they will not work enough elsewhere to get health benefits. The answer may be to go through a healthcare agency after all. That is what I am working on now.

In the meantime I could use a few treats. I can think of none better than new subscribers to this website. Each subscriber provides a little psychological treat to me while making the site more visible to search engines. As awareness for my caregiving and journeying content grows the demand increases for my writings, music and presentations. Then some day, some day, I will have enough coverage to get out and give presentations with humanitarian and caregiver content.

If you already have subscribed, please encourage one friend to do the same. Also like and share the blog posts you find worthy. Right now I could really use some more treats.