Everything Elderly is on at 8:30 a.m. every Saturday on 1290 AM WLBY, sponsored by Senior Helpers. This weekend, we spoke all about home health care.

We first had a lively, informative chat with Trisha Vermeersch, a Regional Development Director with Family Home Health Services. Family is Medicare-accredited, providing in-home services -- skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. Family is based locally in Plymouth, and has offices across Michigan as well as Indiana and Florida. They are well positioned to provide care for snow birds (seniors migrating to and from Florida with the seasons).

Family is growing, and doing very well. They focus on investing in the right technologies and providing strong clinical training for their staff. They have been voted (by employees) two years running as one of the 101 best places to work in southeast Michigan. The company works hard to “give back to the community”.

Services are generally covered by Medicare Part A, with a physician’s order. Family’s clinicians can help confirm that a patient qualifies. Besides the resources at Family, the medicare.gov website is a good resource to get questions answered. These home care services are something people have paid for through taxes, “you have earned it and you deserve these services”.

Trisha enjoys seeing how their services help not only the patients, but their families as well. Having a skilled clinician visit, and provide great care, helps the primary caregiver in so many ways. She also talked about the 75-year-old that thought he would never play golf again. Now through his treatment and therapy, he’s out on the course again! And it’s so great being able to help people stay out of the hospital, and reducing the chance of a hospital readmission.

To contact Trisha Vermeersch, or Family Home Health Services, please call 800-901-3447, or visit their website fhhs.us. To listen to the 13-minute discussion, please click on this audio file Everthing Elderly 0717 Trisha Vermeersch.mp3.

For the second half of the show our studio producer, Jenny Amadori, interviewed us (the Senior Helpers management team). I spoke about my ongoing experience as my wife Joan’s primary caregiver, and her continuing successful 12-year battle against breast cancer. That led me to open our Senior Helpers business, providing in-home personal care services.

Sheila Doeden is a wonderful co-host each week on Everything Elderly. But more importantly in her “day job” she is the client service director of Senior Helpers. Sheila has years of experience in the home care business, as well as her own experiences with her grandmother. She enjoys getting to know our clients and their families.

We were pleased to also have our office administrator, Kim Shell, on the show. Kim handles all the office chores, and keeps the business running smoothly. She enjoys the energy of the office and being part of our team helping folks that need help!

We just completed our first year in business at Senior Helpers. It was very good for all of us personally and professionally, and the business has really taken off! We hadn’t initially planned on doing the radio show, but we’ve found it to be a great way to share information for seniors across the broader community. To listen to the full 12-minute talk click on this file Everything Elderly 0717 SH Staff.mp3.

Alan Caldwell is the owner of Senior Helpers, providing in-home care services, primarily for the elderly. He can be contacted at acaldwell@seniorhelpers.com, or at 734-927-3111.