Providing Companion Care to West Suburban Boston and the Areas of Needham, Newton and Wellesley

The main purpose of a home care companion is to keep your loved one company while guaranteeing he or she has someone trustworthy to talk to. In addition, FirstLight Home Care of West Suburban Boston‘s non-medical companion care services can include help with household tasks. Personal care, on the other hand, focuses on assisting with bathing, personal hygiene, brushing teeth, getting dressed and even mobility and toileting.

FirstLight caregivers can go grocery shopping for your loved one, prepare meals for them, do laundry, clean the house and drive patients to social events or appointments. If you are interested in these types of companion care services, and you are located in the suburbs west of Boston, including Needham, Newton or Wellesley, contact FirstLight Home Care to get a free care assessment.

If you think your loved one may need companion care, a few things to look out for include loneliness, lack of socialization or difficulty completing household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, taking medication on time or keeping track of bills.

Most are Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) or Home Health Aides (HHA), but all are English-speaking, passionate, compassionate, and experienced–many having worked for a dozen years or more in home care and/or other care settings such as Assisted Living, Memory Care and Skilled Nursing Facilities.    Our benefits include top-of-the-market wages and perks as we are committed to attracting and retaining the very best professional caregivers.  We also are there to support our caregivers around-the-clock providing the highest levels of respect, appreciation, and recognition.  We have many caregivers in the Boston area and Eastern Massachusetts who have been with us for years.   We are very selective in our hiring process.  Our pre-screening includes personal interviews, criminal background checks (both multi-state and Massachusetts CORI), and reference checks.  We put caregivers through a proprietary care assessment for competency, attitude, and behavior.   Throughout this process, we ask the question, “would I be comfortable hiring this caregiver to take care of my mother”?

We develop a custom care plan based upon a client’s specific needs, input from those involved in care including family members and care managers or resident care directors in a senior living community.  We typically have great success in matching a Caregiver and a Client right away.  But we recognize that we are aiming to create a relationship, and if it is not a good match, we will identify and schedule another caregiver who we believe would be a better match, and work as a team to ensure that everyone feels comfortable.  The importance of a good match is key to the success of good care.   We have a deep and continually expanding workforce here in Eastern Massachusetts and we are committed to matching to a client and family’s satisfaction.

During our hiring process, we are onboarding caregivers that fall into different categories related to driving.  A driving record check is done for any caregiver that has a Driver’s License, and is willing and able to either drive a client’s car or their own vehicle during a shift.   Given the expense of owning and maintaining a car, particularly in the Boston area, many of our caregivers do not own cars and have their own alternative transportation to and from work.  If driving is a critical part of the care plan needs, we will always do our best based on availability, to match a caregiver who drives and/or has a car.  Should transportation be needed during time with a client for a medical appointment or errand and the caregiver is not able to drive, we are happy to manage and arrange a Lyft through our Lyft agency account, for the caregiver to accompany a client, and then incorporate the cost onto your FirstLight invoice, making it a seamless process.

Care is scheduled on an ongoing basis to help to ensure consistency with caregivers. You will be assigned a Care Coordinator who will oversee the schedule and supervise the caregivers assigned.  While we are very flexible to changing needs, we encourage our clients to maintain a consistent schedule so that we can assign a caregiver to be there on an ongoing basis and build the relationship and routine for care. Your care coordinator will do regular check-ins with you to ensure that your caregiver and schedule are meeting your needs and expectations.

Generally, care is priced hourly or a daily “Live-In Rate” may be available if the situation and needs can accommodate a Live-In.   Hourly rates are higher for shorter visits (less than 8 hours, and again, less than 4 hours) as short shifts are less attractive to Caregivers and higher pay is offered to incentivize and compensate accordingly.  In special circumstances such as a second person in the home requiring care or a client with a communicable disease, a higher rate will be discussed with you upon intake or as needs change.  Holidays listed on the rate sheet are billed at time and half. Your Care Coordinator will contact you in advance to remind you of the holiday rate and confirm if services are needed.

The majority of every dollar of care which appears on your invoice covers caregiver wages, related payroll, other taxes, and mandated benefits such as sick time, as well as worker’s compensation premiums. But these costs do not represent the whole dollar.  It is important to remember that all the office staff’s care coordination and HR-related time is incorporated into the client rates.  We have professional, on-call office staff available 24/7 for any concerns or needs.  FirstLight supervises our caregivers to ensure that the care being provided is according to your care plan.

We do not charge extra for the many hours of care coordination, supervisory visits and care plan re-assessments, frequent communication, and updates as well as any Long-Term Care (LTC) insurance claim assistance.  Nor do we explicitly charge for the many hours needed to identify and hire the best professional caregivers which includes pre-screening followed by more in-depth screening, personal interviews, criminal background checks, and reference checks.