Learn the key differences between personal care aide and caregiver jobs
Interested in a career helping others? Want to know the difference between personal care aide and caregiver? You’ve come to the right place.

Both jobs focus on making a positive impact and helping older adults and seniors live safely and comfortably at home. But there are distinctions between the two roles. Read on to learn the difference between personal care aide and caregiver.

As many people are searching for jobs post-pandemic, they are not just looking at salary and basic insurance coverage. Instead, they are trying to find a place that offers additional creative, supportive, and unique employee benefits. Ones that will leave them feeling confident they have chosen the best place to work. When employees find places with unique benefit programs, they stick in those jobs. No longer are people just asking if companies have good health insurance. Rather, they also want to know:

Does this company offer generous PTO?
What extra insurance benefits does the company offer?
Can I order lunch and expense it?
Will the company help me continue my education and qualifications?
How will my benefits support my parenting and other caregiving responsibilities?
Will the company prioritize not only physical health but also mental health?
What kind of team or collaborative environment does the company offer?
How does the company give back to our community, and how can I get involved?

Earlier this year, Bruce Akins’ mom got her first smartphone, after more than a decade of life with a flip phone. Like any good son, Akins knew the 87-year-old would need some one-on-one assistance in learning to embrace the tech tool, but he also knew that he couldn’t fly from his home state of California to Arizona, where his mom lives, just for a smartphone tutorial.

But within hours, Akins had secured the second-best solution: a “Papa Pal,” a local caregiver, who arrived at his mom’s door to help her get accustomed to her new device. Papa is a service that helps folks like Akins provide their loved ones with the support and companionship they need but might not have access to, all through the touch of an app. Akins, the director of benefits and compensation for California-based SCAN Health Plan, helped add Papa to his employer’s suite of benefits in recent months, making this kind of support available to the company's more than 1,300 employees.

Health care just isn’t the same for everyone. Some people have easy access to great health care professionals. They live down the street from amazing top-notch hospitals, and have the money to afford any care they need.

Others don’t.

While disparities in health care can be caused by geography and finances, perhaps the most concerning disparities are those due to race and ethnicity. Historically, people of color have had higher rates of chronic disease and higher mortality rates than White people. Sadly, this hasn't changed. Data shows that right now, 33% of Black people over 65 have severe chronic illness and an additional 43% have moderate chronic conditions. Their White counterparts have 10% less severe illness and 7% less moderate illness.

“Papa came at the right time,” Felicia says with a grateful smile.

Like so many others, Felicia contracted COVID-19 a few months earlier and was experiencing residual effects. She was constantly going back and forth from the pulmonologist to other doctors. Without a vehicle, she had to take the bus from her small town in Michigan to her appointments in a bigger city. Taking time off work was a challenge, and she was exhausted.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), public health is defined as “the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. On the other hand, public health is concerned with protecting and evaluating the health of entire populations.” These populations vary in size and density, ranging from small, rural neighborhoods to an entire country or continent.

In seeking to understand the unique aspects of a community’s relationship to health, researchers have tied seemingly isolated data patterns to larger trends across demographic divides. Here, stark disparities between groups reveal themselves, illustrating chronic health inequalities stemming from inequity.

Employee wellness programs and benefits have become quite the hot topic in the last few years. Since the onset of the pandemic, more and more employees have been looking for ways to lead healthier lives. This, coupled with the fact that the great resignation has led to thousands of people looking for new work has made it so that finding and offering creative benefits packages that include wellness perks is a top priority for many companies.

At Papa, our mission is to contribute to the world we want to make–a world where nobody has to go it alone. We work hard to bring human-to-human help to those who need a hand, but we also work hard to make sure our Papa Pals and the members we visit are safe as they go about the work that we think is so important.

Kindness, integrity and safety are the foundation of every interaction at Papa. Because these principles extend to all involved in moving our mission forward, we want to go a bit deeper on what each of these community standards mean to us, and how they apply to the work we do.

It’s not hard to see that Covid-19 has been especially difficult for older adults. While those over the age of 65 make up less than 20 percent of the U.S. population, the CDC reports that senior citizens have accounted for about 75 percent of pandemic-related deaths. Additionally, what seems like a plague of loneliness has made older adults susceptible to health conditions that often come as a direct result of social isolation.

The impact the pandemic has had on older adults and loneliness is hard to comprehend.

Senior citizens have been more likely to die from the coronavirus, and additionally, have also struggled with the isolation and loneliness. Fortunately, today, the pandemic is waning; fewer people are getting sick, and there’s no longer any need for mandatory lockdowns. The problem is that for many older adults, the social isolation and loneliness remain. Here, we’ll take a look at why this matters to health plans, and help you figure out how to help your members who are struggling...

Your guide to caregiver benefits
Download now to learn how offering companion care gives you a competitive advantage in the race for talent. 73% of all employees are also caregivers, however only 26% of employers offer programs to help these employees. The balancing act of caring for loved ones at home and working can lead to lost productivity, absenteeism, poor work-life balance, and turnover. Learn how to attract and retain talent by supporting your employees in the way they need it the most.