Home Care in Lehighton and Jim Thorpe, PA

Why Lehighton and Jim Thorpe families call us

Families in this part of Carbon County usually call when a parent who has managed alone for years starts to slip: a fall on the stairs, a scare that ended in the emergency room, or a spouse who can no longer do the caregiving by themselves. Adult children who work in the Lehigh Valley often commute down the Turnpike's Northeast Extension or Route 248, which can put them an hour away on a bad day. They need someone who can be at the house on weekday mornings, after a hospital stay, or overnight when things get harder.

Homes and settings: river boroughs, steep streets and lake communities

Lehighton sits on the west bank of the Lehigh River, ringed by Mahoning Township, with Weissport and Franklin Township across the bridge. Much of the borough is older single homes and twins on hilly streets above the river, with bedrooms upstairs and basement laundry, the kind of house where stairs drive the care plan.

Jim Thorpe is steeper still. The old Mauch Chunk business district is packed into a narrow valley off the Lehigh, with stone-fronted row houses on Race Street and homes climbing the hillsides behind Broadway. East Mauch Chunk, across the river, has more of the town's newer houses and gentler lots. Then there are the communities up the mountain: Albrightsville, Towamensing Trails and Indian Mountain Lake in Penn Forest Township, and Lake Harmony in Kidder Township, where houses sit on wooded lots along private roads and winter driving is a real part of planning.

In each of these settings we start with the house itself. The consultation covers how your parent gets in and out of the shower, whether a bedroom can move to the main floor, and which jobs the caregiver takes on: personal care, meals, laundry and light housekeeping, or rides to appointments and the pharmacy.

St. Luke's Carbon, LVH–Carbon and coming home

Carbon County has two hospitals close together near Lehighton. St. Luke's Carbon Campus opened in 2021 on St. Luke's Drive off Harrity Road in Franklin Township, and Lehigh Valley Hospital–Carbon is on Blakeslee Boulevard Drive East, off Route 443 on the Lehighton side. People who need more specialized care are often transferred to the larger campuses in Bethlehem and Allentown and then come home to Carbon County to recover.

Whichever hospital your parent leaves, call us with the discharge date. A caregiver can meet them at home, help them settle, prepare a meal, keep medication reminders on schedule per the discharge instructions, and stay overnight for the first nights if needed. Skilled nursing and therapy come from the home health agency the hospital arranges; we work alongside them. See coming home from St. Luke's Carbon or LVH–Carbon and coming home from Lehigh Valley Hospital.

How care starts in Lehighton and Jim Thorpe

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 Lehighton, Jim Thorpe or the surrounding townships, meets your parent and walks the house with you. Carbon County is one of our outer counties, so the visit can take a little longer to schedule than the one to two business days typical around Harrisburg.
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

The boroughs along US 209 are easier to staff than the lake communities up the mountain, and every schedule here depends on caregiver availability. Longer visits and recurring shifts, such as a four-hour weekday morning or regular overnights, are easier to cover consistently than a single one-hour visit. Snow on the Pocono plateau can delay a drive, so for clients in Penn Forest or Kidder Township we talk through a backup plan with the family up front. If we cannot staff a schedule well, we will tell you that during the consultation.

Paying for care in Carbon County

• Carbon County Area Agency on Aging, with its office in Palmerton, (610) 824-7830. The AAA handles the OPTIONS program for residents 60 and older, the Caregiver Support Program, care management and Medicaid waiver information. 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 more detail.

Neighborhoods and nearby towns we cover

• Weissport
• Mahoning Township
• Franklin Township
• Jim Thorpe
• East Mauch Chunk
• Palmerton
• Bowmanstown
• Parryville
• Nesquehoning
• Lansford
• Summit Hill
• Albrightsville
• Towamensing Trails
• Lake Harmony