Home Care in Duncannon and Marysville, PA

Why Duncannon and Marysville families call us

Perry County has no hospital of its own, and that fact shapes almost every call we get from Duncannon and Marysville. Your parent's doctors, scans and surgeries are across the river in Harrisburg, Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg or Enola. After a hospital stay they come home to a river town where the nearest emergency room is a bridge away, and the family has to work out who will be there for the first days. Adult children often work in Harrisburg or on the West Shore, so they are close, but not close enough to cover weekday mornings and nights at the same time.

Other calls come from spouses. A husband in Rye Township who has been helping his wife bathe and dress for two years, or a wife in Duncannon whose husband with dementia is now up and wandering at night, usually needs a regular break or overnight help more than anything else.

Homes and settings along the river

Marysville sits between the Susquehanna and the ridges of Blue Mountain and Cove Mountain, with the stone arches of the Rockville Bridge crossing the river from the borough. Most homes are in the borough's grid of older streets or climbing into Rye Township, where lots get larger and driveways steeper. Duncannon, first laid out as Petersburg in 1792, is compact: older houses close to the street along High Street and Market Street, with the Appalachian Trail running right through town before it crosses the river on the Clarks Ferry Bridge with US 22/322. Outside the boroughs, Penn, Wheatfield and Watts townships are farmhouses and homes on wooded hillsides off back roads.

Two-story houses with bedrooms and the only full bath upstairs are common in both boroughs. During the consultation we look at how your parent manages the stairs and the shower, whether a first-floor setup makes sense, and which tasks the caregiver should take on: bathing help, meals, Medication Reminders, laundry and errands.

Hospitals and coming home

Families here usually come home from one of the hospitals across the river: UPMC Harrisburg, UPMC West Shore in Mechanicsburg, Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center in Camp Hill, Penn State Health Hampden Medical Center in Enola, or UPMC Carlisle. Some travel to Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center for specialty care. Discharges often happen late in the day, and the drive home over the river means your parent arrives tired.

Call us with the discharge date and the address. A caregiver can meet your parent at home, help them settle, make something to eat, set up medication reminders that follow the discharge instructions and stay overnight if needed. Nursing and therapy visits come from the home health agency the hospital arranges; we are non-medical and work alongside them. See coming home from UPMC West Shore or Holy Spirit and coming home from UPMC Harrisburg.

How care starts in Duncannon and Marysville

1. Call (717) 695-2704 or request a consultation online. Tell us the address, what a normal day looks like now and what changed recently.
2. In-home consultation. A care coordinator visits the home in Duncannon, Marysville or the nearby townships, meets your parent and walks the house with you. Our office is across the river in Harrisburg, so the drive to Marysville and Duncannon is short.
3. Written care plan listing each task, the schedule, and your parent's preferences and routines.
4. Caregiver match on care needs, personality, language, schedule and location, with an introduction before the first shift when schedules allow.
5. Ongoing check-ins from our office, and on-call support for active clients outside office hours.

An honest word about scheduling

Duncannon and Marysville are among the easier Perry County towns for us to staff because they sit on the main roads out of Harrisburg. Back-road addresses in Wheatfield, Watts or Penn Township take more planning, and every schedule depends on caregiver availability. Longer visits and recurring shifts are easier to staff consistently than one-hour check-ins. We will tell you during the consultation what we can cover reliably.

Paying for care in Perry County

• Perry County Area Agency on Aging, at the county offices in New Bloomfield, (717) 582-5128. The AAA runs the OPTIONS program for residents 60 and older, the Caregiver Support Program, meals programs, shared-ride transportation and health insurance counseling. We accept OPTIONS through the county AAA. See how the OPTIONS program works.
• Long-term care insurance. We provide the care plan, daily notes and itemized invoices most carriers ask for. See how long-term care insurance claims work.
• VA benefits. Aid and Attendance and Housebound benefits can help eligible veterans and surviving spouses pay for care at home. See VA benefits for home care in Pennsylvania.
• Medicaid waiver programs. Community HealthChoices (UPMC Community HealthChoices, PA Health & Wellness, AmeriHealth Caritas), the OBRA waiver and Act 150. We are an enrolled provider, and your parent can choose any willing and qualified provider. See home care through Medicaid waiver programs.
• Medicare does not pay for ongoing non-medical home care. It covers intermittent skilled home health visits when a doctor orders them, which is a different service from ours.

Read how to pay for home care in Pennsylvania for the full picture.

Neighborhoods and nearby towns we cover

• Duncannon
• Marysville
• Penn Township
• Rye Township
• Wheatfield Township
• Watts Township
• Shermans Dale
• New Bloomfield
• Newport
• Dauphin
• Harrisburg
• Camp Hill