Frequently Asked Questions

Right at Home provides personal care, homemaking, transportation and errands, meal planning and preparation, medication reminders, safety supervision, and companionship services. We can combine any of these services to meet you or your loved ones’ needs.  For more information about what services we are able to provide to you or your loved one, please visit our Home Care Services page.

Right at Home Boston Metro West was founded in November of 2002 with the mission to improve the quality of life for those we serve. It is locally owned. Many of our staff are long-time employees who continue to work to perfect this mission and core values and have served us for 5 or 10 years or more.

We can offer hourly services as well as 24/7 around the clock care and live in care. Services may be short or long term.

We provide services wherever you call home including a private home, apartment, independent living residence, assisted living residence, memory care neighborhood, long term care facility, hospital, rehab, and rest home.

Towns that we serve:

Brookline, Chestnut Hill, Cochituate, Framingham, Marlborough, Natick, Needham, Newton, Sudbury, Waltham, Wayland, Wellesley, Weston.

Yes. Every caregiver is employed by our local Right at Home office. To help ensure the safety and well-being of our clients, we perform a criminal history background clearance and then cover each caregiver with general liability and workers' compensation insurance.

We will match you with caregivers who have the skills, experience and temperament to meet your needs, based on our assessment and plan of care. You will always have input and final confirmation on who comes to your home.

While we strive to minimize the number of caregivers coming to your home, based on the amount of hours and days needed, we may schedule additional caregivers in order to provide quality care.  Note that we will always follow labor laws covering overtime and domestic workers.

All caregivers are required to wear a mask during care. They are also expected to use standard precautions of good handwashing and wearing gloves during care. Most caregivers are fully vaccinated, and all are expected to answer a COVID symptom questionnaire when clocking in. Caregivers are re-trained on standard precautions annually and as needed. Please know that though we follow all standard precautions, we cannot guarantee COVID will not be passed on between people in the presence of a world-wide pandemic.

EVV allows caregivers to use a smartphone GPS locator based app, or use telephony calling from the client’s home telephone, to clock in and out of their shifts.  We have been successfully utilizing both approaches for many years.  

Yes, many of our caregivers are very experienced in caring for persons with memory loss and have strategies to care for them successfully. We can provide training to any caregiver on different aspects of memory loss care.

Many of our clients come to us for assistance after a hospitalization or rehab stay, from conditions like elective surgery, pneumonia, MI, or injuries from a fall. We care for clients with increased fall risk, memory loss, heart disease, COPD, lack of safety awareness, kidney disease, stroke, diabetes, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, and many more conditions.  Our caregivers can also help to break social isolation as well as provide emotional support and respite during end-of-life care.

Caregivers may offer medication reminders to help ensure a schedule is followed. They can offer a beverage and watch the client take the meds, document it, and report if the meds were not taken. For our clients under hospice care we may offer medication assistance for pre-filled and scheduled comfort kit medications.

Yes, with at least 24-hour notice you may cancel, reschedule, and change the time and days of any scheduled shifts. There is no contract but rather a services agreement that lays out our responsibilities to each other. We understand that home care needs may change and will be as flexible as possible as your needs evolve

Our services are tailored to fit the needs of each individual client. The number of days and hours, and the scope of services, affect the final cost. An initial exploratory phone conversation will allow us to quote the respective costs so there are no surprises.  

Our care is considered non-medical, therefore is not covered by Medicare, Medicaid or most health insurance. We accept private pay as well as long term care insurance, certain veterans benefits, BayPath ASAP hours, and reverse mortgage funds.  

No. We are non-medical so authorization is not required.

No, our caregivers are employed and supervised by us. We have the responsibility of interviewing, performing background checks, acquiring references, ensuring labor law compliance, paying taxes and benefits, supervising, bonding/insuring, and training our caregivers.

We adhere to all applicable federal and state guidelines related to privacy of personal and healthcare information. We will share only information with the caregivers that is necessary for them to properly carry out the plan of care.

Please call us at 617.597.1500 so we can talk with you through the process and understand your needs.