How to Choose a Home Care Agency
HCA.0002450 CT registration
Check the agency’s state registration, then ask how caregivers are chosen, who answers when you call, what reviews describe, and how the schedule can change.
- Check the registration
- Ask how caregivers are chosen
- Ask who answers after hours
- Read reviews for detail
- Ask how the schedule can change
Choosing a home care agency starts with a few useful questions, and in Connecticut the first is easy to check: the state's eLicense registry lists every registered homemaker companion agency, including Endurance Home Care, HCA.0002450.
Check the registration
Connecticut keeps a public record of registered agencies, and anyone can search it. Look up the agency’s name and check two things: that the registration is active, and that the number matches the one the agency gives you. Endurance Home Care is listed as HCA.0002450, and that number sits in the footer of every page here for exactly this reason.
A registration tells you the agency is on the state’s record in the Homemaker Companion Agency category. It’s a good first step, and the questions below tell you the rest. It’s worth checking every agency on your list, ours included. If the category is new to you, start with what a homemaker companion agency is in Connecticut. For how each state regulates agencies, see home care agencies in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, or the guide to private home care agencies.
Ask how caregivers are chosen and trained
It helps to ask in a specific way: what the training covers and how often it happens, and what the agency learns about your parent before choosing a caregiver.
At Endurance, a registered nurse visits at home and writes the care plan with your family, and the match comes from an interview instead of an open slot on a rotation. Care professionals train across disease states and health and wellness topics, and that training keeps going well past orientation. The care plan gets revisited and updated every month instead of being written once and filed. We choose a caregiver with your parent in mind and introduce them before the first visit, and if it isn’t working, we find someone else. Caregivers have an orientation before their first shift and monthly training, and they take three-hour dementia sessions. Whatever answers you collect, write them down, so you can compare specifics later.
If you’re still working out what kind of help you need, start with what companion care is. If the words home care and home health care have come up as if they meant the same thing, home care vs home health care, explained sorts out the difference.
Ask who answers after hours
Ask every agency what happens when you call in the evening or at the weekend, and who you’ll speak to. Then ask what happens if a caregiver can’t make a shift: who arranges cover, and how you’ll hear about it. The answers tell you a lot about how an agency works day to day.
With us, a backup plan is written into the care plan, and your Care Manager keeps you posted. Endurance publishes a Client Support Line, (203) 936-6847, and a person answers it.
Read reviews for detail
A star rating is a quick summary. The reviews themselves tell you more: how recent they are, whether they describe something specific, and whether the same caregivers come up more than once. A couple of paragraphs about one real week tell you more than a long list of ratings with nothing written underneath.
What to look for: specific, recent and detailed.
- No date, or a date years back with nothing since
- Praise that would fit any business in any industry
- A rating with no words under it
- Nothing named: no caregiver, no town, no situation
- Posted recently, with more since
- A specific situation described start to finish
- A caregiver named, and named again in somebody else's review
- The hard parts mentioned, not only the good ones
Read ours the same way: open the review profile and read what families describe.
If you’re still deciding whether your parent needs help, the signs a parent needs help may be the place to start.
Ask how the schedule can change, and how families pay
Needs change over time. It helps to know whether an agency can adjust the schedule, add nights or move to live-in care without your family starting over with someone new.
- Hourly careVisits by the hour, on the days you set
- 24/7 careCaregivers working awake shifts through the day and night
- Live-in careA caregiver living in the home, with agreed working hours and a night's rest
- Care in facilitiesOne-to-one help inside assisted living or another care community
- Long term care insuranceWorth checking: many policies cover care at home
Endurance schedules run across that whole range on one file and one care team, which is the answer you are listening for from anybody. We’re private pay, and if your parent has long-term care insurance, we help with the policy paperwork. Policies differ, so it’s worth reading yours and asking any agency how they’ll help with it.
Five questions, asked of every agency on your list.
Searching for home care near you is a good way to build a shortlist. The results aren’t a ranking of who will do the work well, so put the same questions to everyone on it.
Families often ask whether a family-owned agency is different from a franchise. Endurance Home Care is a family business: brothers Chris and Tom Weldon started it after caring for their own grandmother, and Andrew Schwartz is our CEO, which is why the principals are reachable. A well-run agency of either kind should answer these questions clearly, and an agency that answers all five directly has already told you how it will behave on the day something goes wrong. When you’re ready to ask us, call (203) 936-6847.
Connecticut Registration HCA.0002450, active.
Questions families ask
How to choose a home care agency
Ask the same five questions of every agency: is it registered with the state (in Connecticut, check the eLicense registry); how are caregivers chosen and trained; who answers the phone, including after hours, and who arranges cover if a caregiver can't make a shift; what do recent, detailed reviews describe; and can the schedule change, from hourly to live-in or around the clock, as needs change. An agency that answers all five directly is telling you how it will behave later.
Is Endurance Home Care registered in Connecticut?
Yes. Endurance Home Care holds Connecticut Homemaker Companion Agency registration HCA.0002450, registry-verified as active, and the number appears in the site footer. You can confirm it yourself on Connecticut's public eLicense registry, which is the first step this guide suggests for any agency you're considering.
Are family-owned home care agencies different from franchises?
The structural difference is who you can reach. In a family-owned agency the principals are in the business: Endurance Home Care is a family business, started by brothers Chris and Tom Weldon after caring for their own grandmother, with Andrew Schwartz as CEO, and reviewers describe the owner making everything easy from the very first call. Franchises can serve well too. Whichever you're considering, ask the same questions: who you'll speak to, how caregivers are chosen, and what happens when something changes.
We’re glad to answer every one of these questions
Tell us about your parent and ask us anything. Home care across Connecticut and New Jersey, and companion care in New York, from an agency registered with the state as HCA.0002450. The first conversation is free, and nothing starts until you say so.