I am the Vice President of Cooperative Home Care. Mid-December 2025, my mom had a bad fall. Following hospital and rehab stays, her doctor prescribed home health care. It is very interesting to be on the patient-side of home care; my experience reminded me how important it is understand this process. Eight weeks post-fall, Mom has regained about 90% of her pre-fall abilities and continues improving steadily. How does an 86-year old achieve such great outcomes? How did we leverage home care? As the VP of a home care company, here is my family’s plan for each step: hospital, rehab, and home:
Hospital and Rehab
One of us visited my Mom every day, if only for an hour. We had a checklist of things to achieve each day (our hospital list included asking about her stroke prevention protocol, confirming PT visited, helping her freshen up the best she could; our rehab list included more stroke prevention monitoring, watching therapy to learn how to safely help her, eventually practicing standing and walking to/from the bathroom, and discussing her progress and planned discharge date with her case manager). A checklist gives you purpose and helps everyone see and celebrate progress made!
Bottom line: you have to kindly and steadily advocate for your loved one’s needs. Confirm their medications upon hospitalization, again when transferring to rehab, and again when discharging home. They will likely change—when they do, ask why!
Pace yourself: depending on your loved one’s needs, hospital and rehab stays are relatively manageable. Try not to burn yourself out before discharge home, as you are likely going to be providing extra help, at least temporarily, once they are home.
Home
Hooray! Mom is going home—why am I scared?
As a home care (and rehab) expert, I was still very nervous about Mom returning home. During her 26 days in the hospital and rehab facility, we devised a plan based on work schedules and flexibilities. Mom would temporarily live with me; I would work from home most days, with my sister subbing in as her schedule allowed during the work week and some evenings/weekends.
Rehab or hospital discharge day is a long day; try to be rested and patient. If you can help your loved one shower once home, this is a very refreshing activity for them. (I help Mom, but when my Dad was discharged home after hospital, I scheduled a two-hour caregiver visit to help him shower).
Home health care including nursing and PT visited 1-2 times per week; I supplemented their efforts with Mom’s at-home exercises and functional activities (doing only as much as she needed and gently pushing her to do more each day). I also began working in a different part of the house so I could observe how Mom did when she was “alone”. Eventually, I began leaving her alone for increasingly longer time periods. I usually called her if I was away more than one or two hours.
After three weeks at my home, Mom returned to her home and is staying safely by herself during weekdays. She is still receiving home health care, now at her home. We have also been able to incorporate day trips to her sister’s home about once a week; last week we even went to lunch (pictured above)!
I appreciate every person’s journey is different; I have supported Mom through three significant recoveries and Dad through one. When you have limitations on the non-medical care you can provide, caregivers from a home care company like Cooperative can be so very helpful. Here are my tips to make home care as affordable as possible:
Identify, realistically, how much help you and other family members can provide. Hopefully it is temporary; Mom’s needs decreased every week.
Schedule caregivers to fill gaps you cannot. You can decrease/stop home care as soon as you are ready!
Had I been unable to flex my schedule, here is what home care would have cost when Mom was discharged home based on Cooperative Home Care’s Value Pricing:
Discharge day: $0 as I took a PTO day
Week 1: $1320 for a caregiver 8 hours per day, Monday through Friday, while I was at work
Week 2: $792 for a caregiver Monday, Wednesday, Friday, while I was at work (no caregivers on home health days*)
Week 3: $528 for a caregiver Monday and Wednesday
Week 4 and ongoing: $200 for two-hour caregiver visits, two to three days per week
*Home health nurse and PT visits are usually less than an hour, but there is peace of mind that someone has checked on Mom during the day
Cooperative provides guidance for your specific situation; we will work with you to make home care as affordable as possible. Cooperative 360 is our Full Circle Care model where we qualify you for every type of home care before you pay out-of-pocket. Call our Intake Nurse at 314-772-8585 today; a 10-minute phone call empowers you and is a huge step toward an inspirational outcome.
