Wanted:
50 family caregivers in the Pittsburgh PA area
willing to get trained and paid a monthly stipend based on your engagement in our new Family Caregiver program. As a participant you’ll receive:
Benefits
Ongoing support from a Care Navigator
Monthly stipend based on your engagement in the program
Medicare-covered home health services for your homebound loved one
Free online training relevant to your loved one’s care needs
The care you provide is valuable
By joining our new program in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties, you can get the training and care navigation support you need to help reduce avoidable hospital and ER visits. That added support, coupled with getting paid a monthly stipend, can help ease the strain that can come with caring for an older loved one.
This 12-month program is for family caregivers of an older adult on Medicare (not Medicaid) with one or more chronic conditions that make it difficult or impossible for them to leave home without assistance.
How the Family Caregiver program works
RubyWell guides you through the process, step by step, from checking eligibility to providing care.
Check eligibility
Medicare-covered home health services begin for your eligible loved one
View caregiver training videos relevant to your loved one’s care needs
Receive support from your dedicated Care Navigator and a community of family caregivers
Provide care and updates on your loved one’s health status and occaionally share your feedback on the program
You already play a central role on your loved one's care team
Now you can have the consistent support and resources you need to help prevent avoidable health crises that tend to happen between doctor or home health visits. That saves you and our health system time and money. It’s valuable work and we want to compensate you for it.
We have room for 50 families in this program.
Find out if yours can be of them today.
Who can participate?
The person you care for must live in Allegheny or Westmoreland County. And you both must meet certain requirements to qualify for this program.
Can pass a criminal background check
Connect and collaborate with your Care Navigator on a weekly basis
Participate in user interviews, testing, & surveys
Willing to gain valuable information from training videos relevant to your loved one's care needs
Covered by Original Medicare (Parts A & B) or a participating Medicare Advantage plan
Unable to leave home without assistance due to health condition
Health condition requires skilled care (nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, or speech therapy)
Consent to participate in the program and securely share their PHI with RubyWell and our home health and training partners
Access to internet service where they live
Tech you can trust
We take your privacy and safety seriously. Our systems keep your information secure and protect against fraud, waste, and abuse. So you can feel confident your data is in good hands.
FAQs
RubyWell’s free service helps ease the strain of caregiving four ways:
- Family Caregiver Support
We match you with a Care Navigator—an experienced social worker who can help guide you through the healthcare maze of doctors, health plans, and appointments. They’ll help coordinate all of your loved one’s care providers so you’re all on the same page. They’ll refer you to valuable resources in your community. You’ll meet with them virtually every week so they can get a sense for how you’re doing and if you need any help. You can also share concerns or questions with them at any time.
- Training
We give you access to free training videos that are relevant to your loved one’s health condition and care needs. So you’ll learn the best ways to provide the care they need in order to avoid preventable trips to the hospital. You’ll also learn how to recognize changes in your loved one’s health that could suggest the need to escalate care. So you’ll know how to catch something before it becomes a dangerous health situation. The videos are short and pretty easy to fit into a busy schedule.
- Community Building
You’ll join a cohort of other family caregivers in your area who are facing a lot of the same challenges you are. You’ll meet virtually every week, in a meeting facilitated by your Care Navigator. You may even choose to connect with each other on your own time whenever you feel like you need a little empathy, a chance to vent, or share a laugh. We all know caregiving comes with the full range of emotions.
- Compensation
You’ll be paid a stipend of up to $300/month based on your engagement in the program. Joining regular check-ins with the Care Navigator and your cohort, completing training videos, filling out patient updates, sharing feedback on our program, completing surveys, and other program activities all count as engagement. The more you engage, the more you’ll be compensated, the more likely the person you care for will have better health outcomes, and the more confident you’ll probably feel as their caregiver. If time is more valuable to you than money, you can choose to receive non-cash compensation, such as respite care or housekeeping assistance. The value of any non-cash compensation just can’t be greater than the value of the cash stipend you would be eligible to receive.
No, there’s no cost for any of RubyWell’s services. Family caregivers already have enough expenses!
And for Original Medicare (Parts A and B) beneficiaries, there’s no cost for the home health services they're eligible for. Original Medicare covers medically-necessary home health services for eligible patients.
Medicare Advantage plans (Part C) are required to cover the same services as Original Medicare, but they may charge a copay, and you may need prior authorization for care.
Eligible family caregivers can receive a $300 stipend after successfully completing initial online training videos. Then you can receive a stipend of up to $300/month for continued participation in the 12-month program. The monthly stipend amount depends on your engagement with Care Navigator huddles, check-ins, additional training videos, feedback interviews, surveys, and other program activities to help us optimize our program. If time is more valuable to you than money, you can choose to receive non-cash compensation, such as respite care or housekeeping assistance. The value of any non-cash compensation just can’t be greater than the value of the cash stipend you would be eligible to receive.
The free, online training videos we share with you range in length from 10 - 20 minutes each. So they’re easy to fit into a busy day. And they're packed with information that even seasoned famiy caregivers have found helpful. At the end of each video, there are some questions you’ll need to answer to get credit for watching the video.
When you first join the program, you'll be asked to complete a series of initial training videos in order to start receiving support from your Care Navigator and earning monthly stipend payments. These videos walk you through topics like:
- how the program works and how we expect you to engage with us
- how to recognize changes in your loved one’s behavior or health that could lead to a health crisis
- when to call the home health agency vs. when to call an ambulance
Throughout the rest of the program, we’ll provide you with occasional training videos that are relevant to your loved one’s particular health condition(s) and care needs.
You’ll be matched with a dedicated Care Navigator for the duration of the program. Your Care Navigator is an experienced social worker who has deep experience and expertise with helping aging adults and their family caregivers navigate the healthcare system. As an employee of our partner home health agency, The Jewish Association on Aging (JAA), your Care Navigator partners closely with the home health team to ensure seamless and frequent communication.
The support they provide includes:
- facilitating weekly, virtual “caregiver huddles,” when they will check-in with you on your loved one’s condition and your own needs or concerns as you provide care.
- coordinating early intervention and care transitions to help you prevent avoidable hospitalizations
- following up with you after any hospitalization to support a smooth and safe transition back home
- helping you understand what health signals to watch for and how to communicate concerns to the home health team
- conducting home visits to help onboard you and your loved one to the program, build relationships, observe how care is provided and received in order to see if additional support may be helpful, and help you navigate care pathways and resources
- helping you understand and make the most of the support, training, and stipend payments available to you through this program
- help with problem-solving, navigating to resources, planning next steps, and overcoming barriers to successful care. This could be anything from arranging for a handyman to install a grab bar to finding respite care so you can care for yourself.
Home health care includes a range of medical and therapeutic services delivered in a patient’s home. Its goal is to promote, maintain, or restore health; slow a patient’s decline; or to help manage the effects of illness, injury, or disability.
Medicare covers home health services for members who are homebound, at risk for future hospitalizations, and need assistance with activities of daily living (bathing, toileting, continence, dressing, eating, transferring).
Medicare considers a person homebound if both of these statements are true:
- They rarely leave home and when they do, it's just for short appointments or special events.
- Leaving home is difficult due to shortness of breath, pain, limited stamina, or other reasons.
And one of these statements is true:
- They require an assistive device (e.g., wheelchair, walker, crutches, cane), special transportation, or personal assistance to leave home due to illness or injury.
- Their doctor has recommended that they not leave home because of their condition.