Home care across the Poconos

Why coverage out here is thin, and what we did about it

It is not that families in Monroe County need less help. It is the arithmetic. An agency built around four-hour visits needs its caregivers to reach three or four houses a day — and out here the houses are twenty minutes apart. Somewhere past Bartonsville that model stops working, so those agencies stop answering the phone.

We work the other way round. Cases of twenty hours a week and up, one caregiver assigned to one family. One house, one drive, a real day's work. That is the whole reason we can serve Tobyhanna and Brodheadsville the same way we serve downtown Stroudsburg — and it is not charity, it is scheduling.

What Monroe County actually looks like from our side

Three things shape care here more than anywhere else we work:

• Distance. The nearest relative may be an hour away, and the nearest facility further. Overnight and live-in care is often the difference between staying home and not staying home.
• Winter. A Pocono January turns an ordinary week into a hard one — an uncleared driveway, an appointment that cannot be missed, three days without seeing another person. Families who start looking in January learn the hard way that January is the worst month to be looking.
• Who lives here. A lot of working-age adults, a lot of people who moved out from New York and New Jersey and left their support network behind, and a large Spanish-speaking community. Our caregivers speak English, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian and Persian.

The programs nobody mentions to working-age families

This matters more in Monroe County than most places, because the population here skews younger than the Lehigh Valley and the assumption that home care is a thing for the elderly runs deep.

If the person needing care is between 18 and 59 with a physical disability, two Pennsylvania programs may cover attendant care at home:

• Act 150 — state funded, built for people whose income is too high to qualify for Medicaid. There is a weekly fee on a sliding scale, capped at the cost of the services.
• The OBRA waiver — a Medicaid waiver for adults with a severe physical disability.

We are an enrolled provider for both, and we are accepting new participants in Monroe County right now. Enrollment starts with Pennsylvania's Independent Enrollment Broker: 1-877-550-4227.

What we do

Bathing, grooming and dressing. Mobility help, transfers and fall prevention. Medication reminders. Meals, laundry and light housekeeping. Groceries, errands, and rides to Lehigh Valley Hospital–Pocono and the practices along Route 611. Overnight, 24-hour and live-in care. Respite for a family member who has been carrying it alone.

We are a home care agency, not home health — no nursing, no physical therapy. If that is what you need, tell us and we will point you to the right kind of provider.

Towns we cover

Stroudsburg · East Stroudsburg · Tobyhanna · Mount Pocono · Brodheadsville and the West End

Also Bartonsville, Swiftwater, Marshalls Creek, Effort, Saylorsburg, Pocono Summit, Cresco, Analomink, Sciota, Kunkletown, Gilbert and Reeders. If your town is not on this list, call and ask — the answer is usually yes.

Paying for care

Community HealthChoices, Act 150, the OBRA waiver, VA Community Care, long-term care insurance and private pay. The full guide → · What it costs →

Talk to us

Call 610-466-5715. The in-home assessment is free and there is no obligation — and if the honest answer is a program we cannot bill, we will tell you that instead of booking you anyway.