In-home care in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Saint Paul is the largest part of the area our caregivers and nurses cover, and the part where the practical questions differ most from the suburbs. Two of them come up on nearly every first call: which county you are dealing with, and what the house is going to make difficult.
Ramsey County, not Washington County
This is the local detail that changes most between the towns we serve, and the one families are most often given wrong by somebody who meant well. Saint Paul is in Ramsey County, and so is Maplewood. Woodbury, Cottage Grove and Stillwater are in Washington County.
It matters when care is going to be paid for through the Elderly Waiver, CADI or BI, because the assessment and the case management are arranged through your county lead agency, and for a Saint Paul address that is Ramsey County. If you are in a managed care plan, your plan may handle it instead. Ask either one and they will tell you which of them owns it.
If you already have a case manager, they are the person to start with. If you do not, the county assessment is what opens the door, and it is worth starting before you have chosen a provider.
Old houses, and what they change
Much of Saint Paul was built before the war, and a lot of it has the same shape: bedrooms upstairs, the only full bathroom on the second floor, a staircase with a turn in it, and the laundry in the basement.
None of that stops care happening at home. It does change the plan, and it changes it earlier than families expect, because the house decides what one caregiver can safely do on their own.
- Where does the person sleep now, and where would they sleep if the stairs stopped working?
- Is there a bathroom, or even a half-bath, on the main floor?
- How wide is the bathroom door, and does it open inward?
- Is there a way into the house without steps, or could there be?
- Where would equipment go, if equipment were needed?
Have those answers ready when you call. They settle more about what a caregiver can do than the diagnosis does.
Coming home from a hospital stay
If somebody is being discharged to a Saint Paul address, the useful thing to know early is that the referral the discharge team makes and the day-to-day help at home are two different arrangements, usually from two different providers, paid for in two different ways.
Families find that out late more often than not, and late is expensive. Ask the discharge planner which one they are arranging, and arrange the other yourself while there is still time.
Why we list ZIP codes rather than the city name
A Saint Paul mailing address reaches past the city line in a few places, so the city on an envelope is not a reliable answer to whether somebody is inside our area. The ZIP code is. The check below is the fastest way to settle it, and if yours is not on the list that is still worth a phone call rather than a conclusion.
Questions families ask
- Do you cover the whole city?
- The ZIP codes we list are on this page. Saint Paul addresses reach past the city line in places, which is why we list ZIP codes rather than saying the city name and leaving it there.
- We are in Ramsey County but not in Saint Paul.
- Maplewood is on our list. For anywhere else in the county, call and ask: our caregivers travel from Woodbury, and the answer depends on the schedule more than on the map.
- Is care in the city different from care in the suburbs?
- The care is the same. Parking, stairs and the age of the house come up more often, and all three are worth mentioning when you call.
Tell us the address and the stairs
Those two facts settle more than anything else at the start. We will tell you what we can do from there, including when the honest answer is that the house is the problem rather than the hours.