By Sofia Elmer, RN · Care Coordinator · 24 Hour Home Care NJ
Our Scotch Plains office runs about four intake calls a day. The call takes 20 minutes, start to finish. By the time you hang up, we know whether your mother needs live-in or 24-hour, what her LTCi policy covers, and which CHHA on our Union County roster matches her shift pattern. First-match goes out inside 72 hours.
A Week With Nora · Ep 1 · The Doorbell
Here’s the first episode of A Week With Nora. The doorbell rings at 8:47 am in a New Jersey household on 24-hour home care. The caregiver’s a certified CHHA on the 24 Hour Home Care NJ roster. Watch and see how the morning starts.
Quick answer:
A New Jersey home care intake call runs 20 minutes and covers six steps: who’s calling and why now (2 min), medical history and medications (5 min), the household map (3 min), the care window live-in versus 24-hour versus overnight (4 min), start date and payment type (3 min), and first-match commitment inside 72 hours (3 min). Sofia Elmer, RN takes the call at (908) 912-6342.
On this page
Step 1 (minutes 0 to 2): who called and why now
The first two minutes aren’t small talk. They set the clock on the whole case. Sofia asks three questions: your name and relationship to the client, where the client is right now (home, hospital, rehab, assisted living), and what triggered the call this week. According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, about 60% of inbound intake calls come from an adult daughter in her fifties, often standing in a hospital hallway in Union, Essex, or Morris County with a discharge planner’s packet in hand.
The “why now” piece matters because it tells us how fast we need to move. A fall last Tuesday with a scheduled Friday discharge from Overlook or Morristown Medical Center is a 48-hour clock. Slow dementia decline where the family’s finally ready to stop caregiving themselves is a 7 to 14-day clock. Either way, we commit to a first-match timeline before you hang up.
If you’re calling from a hospital room and don’t have time to talk, say so. We’ll call back inside 90 minutes and run the full intake then. Dial (908) 912-6342 Monday through Friday 8 am to 7 pm, and after hours we route to a live person, not voicemail.
Step 2 (minutes 2 to 7): the medical history snapshot
Five minutes, three parts. Diagnoses first (dementia, post-stroke, Parkinson’s, CHF, COPD, cancer in treatment, recent hip or knee surgery). Medications second (we ask you to read the pill bottles if you’re near them, or the discharge summary medication list). Falls history third (any fall in the last 12 months, where, what the ER said if there was an ER visit).
For dementia cases, Sofia adds four questions: is the diagnosis Alzheimer’s, Lewy body, vascular, or unspecified; what stage (mild, moderate, severe, or end of life); any sundowning, wandering, or hallucinations; and whether a geriatric psychiatrist is on the team. This matters because a client with Lewy body dementia reacts badly to standard antipsychotics, and we flag that for the CHHA on Day 1.
According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, the medical snapshot is the single piece families forget to prepare. If you’re mid-call and realize you don’t have the medication list in front of you, that’s fine. We flag it, finish the rest of intake, and loop back in a follow-up call the same day.
Step 3 (minutes 7 to 10): the household map
Three minutes to map the house. Where’s the primary bedroom, upstairs or down? How many bathrooms, and does the client’s bedroom have an en suite? From the front door to living space, how many steps, and is a stair-lift already installed? Rugs in the walking path? Pets, and are they friendly to strangers? A nervous dog in a Westfield split-level has turned good caregiver matches into bad ones more than once.
Sofia also asks who’s already in rotation. Spouse, adult children living nearby, grandchildren who stop by, cleaning service once a week, a neighbor who brings the mail. This matters because a CHHA walking into a crowded household on Monday morning needs to know which faces are expected. If a daughter in Summit does mornings and a son in Bridgewater does weekends, our caregiver schedule works around them, not against.
Mid-call check-in
Rather than reading about intake, you can run through it with Sofia right now. 20 minutes, one call, no sales pitch, no obligation to book.
Step 4 (minutes 10 to 14): the care window
Four minutes to sort live-in versus 24-hour versus overnight. The question Sofia asks first: does the client sleep through the night, wake once or twice, or wake constantly? A client who sleeps 10 pm to 6 am without getting up fits a live-in model, where one CHHA stays 24 hours with a required 8-hour sleep break. Someone who wakes four times a night, wanders, or needs repositioning for pressure injuries fits a 24-hour rotation, where two or three CHHAs cover the day in 8 or 12-hour blocks.
Overnight-only is a third option, usually 10 or 12-hour shifts starting around 8 or 10 pm. We use it when a spouse handles the day, or when adult children in Summit, Chatham, or Short Hills cover days and need to sleep themselves. The chart below shows how the three windows map to published 2026 rates.
| Care window | Shift structure | Who fits | 2026 rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live-in | 1 CHHA on-site 24 hrs with 8-hr sleep break | Sleeps through the night, mild to moderate dementia, stable post-op | $400 to $550 per day |
| 24-hour rotation | 2 or 3 CHHAs in 8 or 12-hr blocks | Night wandering, 2-person transfer, active end-of-life, severe dementia | $720 to $1,080 per day |
| Overnight only | 1 CHHA, 10 or 12-hr shift starting 8 or 10 pm | Spouse or family covers day, sundowning, fall-risk at night | $300 to $420 per shift |
If you’re on the fence between live-in and 24-hour, Sofia often recommends a one-week assessment at the live-in rate. If the CHHA logs more than two wake-ups a night, we step up to rotation on Week 2. That’s the honest conversation most agencies skip.
Step 5 (minutes 14 to 17): start date and payment type
Three minutes on logistics. Target start date: Monday, Wednesday, this weekend, next week. Payment type: private pay, long-term care insurance (we handle John Hancock, Genworth, MetLife, Transamerica, and Mutual of Omaha claims paperwork in-house), or VA Aid & Attendance for a wartime veteran or surviving spouse. Private pay and private insurance only. We do not accept Medicaid or Medicare.
If LTCi is in play, Sofia asks for the policy number, the daily benefit, the elimination period in days, and whether the client has already satisfied the elimination days from an earlier claim. She also asks whether the policy requires a licensed home care agency (we are, HCSF-licensed through the NJ Division of Consumer Affairs) and whether it requires caregiver documentation of hands-on ADLs (we provide daily logs on the carrier’s accepted format).
For VA Aid & Attendance applicants, we don’t fill out the VA form, but we do give the care-plan documentation the VA accepts as proof of medical need. If the application hasn’t been filed yet, start with the VA Aid & Attendance official page and bring the file reference to intake. Call (908) 912-6342 if you’d like us to walk through the policy page you’re holding.
Step 6 (minutes 17 to 20): first-match commitment inside 72 hours
The last three minutes of intake close the loop. Sofia names a first-match deadline before you hang up. According to 24 Hour Home Care NJ, we commit to presenting a primary CHHA inside 72 hours for established counties (Union, Essex, Morris, Somerset, Middlesex, Bergen, Passaic, Mercer, Monmouth, Hunterdon, Ocean), and inside 5 to 7 days for lighter-roster counties where we’re honest up front about the swap depth.
What “first-match” means: an RN in-home assessment on Day 1 or 2, the primary CHHA introduced on Day 2 or 3, and a backup CHHA who shadows one shift inside the first 7 days so the family knows two faces, not one. Sofia calls you at the end of Week 1 to adjust the care plan, swap the CHHA if the fit is wrong, or add hours.
Published rates and the swap policy both live at 24hourhomecarenj.com. Related reading: 24-Hour Home Care in New Jersey, Union County coverage, Morris County coverage, live-in caregivers in NJ, and the NJ home care cost calculator. For federal context on home care standards, see NAHC.
FAQ
How long does a home care intake call actually take?
Twenty minutes if you have the medications list and discharge summary in front of you. Thirty minutes if you need to find them mid-call. Sofia doesn’t rush, and she doesn’t pad. The call ends with a named first-match deadline and a scheduled in-home RN assessment inside 48 hours. Call (908) 912-6342.
What should I have ready before I call for intake?
Four items: the current medication list (names, doses, times, or the pill bottles themselves), the hospital discharge summary if your parent is coming home from a stay, the long-term care insurance policy number if there is one, and a rough target start date. If you’re missing any, we work with what you have and loop back.
Does intake cost anything?
No. The 20-minute phone intake and the follow-up in-home RN assessment inside 48 hours are both free. You don’t pay anything until the first CHHA shift starts. There’s no booking fee, no deposit, no cancellation penalty if you decide after the home visit that we’re not the right fit. Call (908) 912-6342.
What if we need care tonight, not in 72 hours?
Call anyway. For true same-day starts in Union, Essex, Morris, Somerset, Middlesex, or Bergen County, we can sometimes place a stop-gap CHHA inside 4 to 8 hours while the primary match goes through intake. Overnight-only shifts starting at 8 or 10 pm are the most placeable on short notice. Dial (908) 912-6342.
Who actually takes the intake call, Sofia or a scheduler?
Sofia Elmer, RN takes most intakes personally during business hours. If she’s on another intake or at an in-home assessment, a second RN on the team runs the call to the same template. You never get a non-clinical scheduler for the medical history piece. The CHHA matching happens after intake, by the scheduling team.
Call Sofia today
Twenty minutes on the phone and you’ll know the care window, the rate, the start date, and the first-match deadline. Bring the medication list and the LTCi policy number if you have one.
About the author
Sofia Elmer, RN is Care Coordinator at 24 Hour Home Care NJ, a Health Care Service Firm licensed in New Jersey, headquartered at 210 Haven Avenue, Suite 2C, Scotch Plains, NJ 07076. She runs the 20-minute phone intake and writes every initial care plan herself. She takes the first call from families in Union, Essex, Morris, Somerset, Middlesex, and Bergen counties at (908) 912-6342.
Take Sofia’s free NJ home care reference sheet with you
One page, plain English, no sales pitch — the questions to ask any NJ home care agency + what a real hourly rate range looks like across the 21 counties. Sofia RN made it for you.