Does Anyone Know Any Information about becoming a home health aid?

My Mom is having surgery tomorrow and after she comes home she will need to take it easy and not need to be running around doing housework and everything. I was wondering what i have to do to become an in home health aid for her at home, a friend of mine takes care of her mother at home and gets paid like $7.00 an hour which isnt great but its better than nothing. anyway i dont care about the money i just want to take care of my mom in a proper health type manner. I will be 18 in a couple weeks so does anyone know what classes i have to take or anything? i heard you have to be 18 so thats taken care of but what are the requirements?

From a legal standpoint in most states. you just need to contact the agency that controls the Federal Medicaid Waiver Program in your State. Then you fill out a lot of forms. Then go to your local law enforcement agency (police or sheriff) and pay to have your fingerprints taken and a statewide Criminal Background Check done. Then you deal with billing (in places like Ohio, you must hire an agency to submit your bills, in places like California and Illinois you submit time sheets to your State Agency and they then give you a Direct Deposit either weekly, every other week, or once a month <depending on the State and how often the time sheets are required to be submitted>). Anyone who walks off the street with a clean criminal background can become a "Home Health Aide" (medical term for "Housekeeper") or Personal Care Attendant (medical term for one that actually gives care physically to the disabled person). Normally to qualify in most States, the person must be "Medicaid Eligible" (if they are not on Medicaid, they must qualify for it), and be considered "permanently disabled" (this is different from State to State). That is what you need to get PAID to perform such services. Also some States DO NOT PAY family members to take care of someone, you can take care of others for pay but not someone you are related to by blood, adoption, or marriage (unless you have special permission from the State Agency).
That is all it takes to get "paid to be an aide". No training at all, it is expected for the disabled person to hire and train you for their needs.

Some States only require you to take an "8 hour course" online where you read a few pages, answer some "common sense" questions (10 at the most) per class, and you do 8 of them a year to remain "certified" to receive payment. This is to make sure you know the State Laws and what you must report and what documentation you must have in case an accident or injury occurs to your "client", and you need to document when they are hospitalized, when they take antibiotics, and if they have had an accident every month to the State Agency.

But that deals ONLY with the financial aspect of the work. If you WANT training the MINIMUM training in my opinion is to take an American Red Cross First Aid Class and an American Heart Association CPR Class (in my opinion as a physician, AHA does a better job in training in CPR than the ARC, and in fact most of the hospitals will not accept my ARC card and REQUIRE me to have the AHA card). If you want to do this beyond your mother, you may want to take a Certified Nurse's Aide (CNA) course that is offered by most Community Colleges or Trade Schools or a local Nursing School. But again, this sort of training IS NOT REQUIRED to become certified to receive payments as an HHA or a PCA.

If you want to take care of your mother, do not care to make a penny from the work. Just take a first aid class, or ask her nurses at the hospital to teach you how to change a dressing and what to look for. To instruct you on all of the "discharge orders" that are given to your mother when she is discharged (basically what instructions they give her, and what she is to look for). That is all you really need. If something does not look right, smell right, or seems right to you, just call 9-1-1 and have the Paramedics evaluate her, and if they feel that she needs to go to the hospital (while they are in communication with the hospital by radio or telephone), then they take her back in. It may seem overly simple, but just take care of your mother as you would if she had a cold or the flu. Just give her love, help her in any way that you see she needs (just ask her what she needs help on, and ask her if you can help if you see she is having difficulty). That is all you really need to do.

If you feel a calling to help, you may want to go to the formality of becoming a CNA or a Nurse. But with all the work involved and the rather low pay, my suggestion is to become a doctor. The CNA's do all the "dirty work" (change sheets, take vital signs, feed patients, clean up messes). The Nurses, they do all of the real "person to person" care and get paid too little for all the hard work they do. My Godfather's mother (a Critical Care Nurse), wish she had gone to Medical School and recommended that if her granddaughter wanted to enter the "helping field" to become a Doctor.

As an intern in a hospital, I work 12 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week (if I am lucky I get a day or two off per month). I get paid an "Honorarium" while I am working (in fact it is part of my Financial Aid package) of $100 per shift (that is not much when you divide that by 18 hours or sometimes by 24 hours, over Labor Day Weekend I worked a 72 hour shift and that $100 was just over a "buck an hour". I do not do it for the money. I do it for the caring of the patients. Once I am out of my internship, out of my residency, and go into practice, the hours will still be long and hard, the pay will be better. But I am still not in it for the money.

I am in it because when I have delivered a baby in the Emergency Room, and felt the "shiver" that goes through my spine when the baby takes its first breath, that is payment enough. When someone comes through the door "dead" (heart not beating, not breathing, hardly any blood left in their body), and I can with God's help, hopefully bring them back (after all I am just God's tool, it is not anything I have done, it is what God has done through me), then I have had a very good day. When it it hard is when no matter what you do, no matter how much "blood, sweat, and tears" you provide, and the Lord calls that person home... it still hurts. I still cry and say a prayer for every patient that I lose. It may be a very small percentage, but losing one to me is as great as losing a thousand.

Contact your local high school to see if they have that program in their VO Tech.

Look in your yellow pages for nursing homes in your area. Phone them and tell them you are looking for a CNA course. They'll be able to help you. Good luck and I hope your mother is feeling better soon.

Just go apply for it, and they do, do a background check, and just generaly talk to you, oh, and you need to get fingerfrinted at your local police department! If you pass all this (Which can take up to 2 to 3 weeks, it will be ok.