Premiums are amounts charged on top of the hourly bill rate for specific types of service. Nobody likes added costs. Nobody likes unstable, unreliable service either. Our premiums exist to balance the two, and every dollar goes to the caregiver, not the business.
Weekend Premium
Weekend service is $6 per hour extra. For a client with hours spread evenly across the week, that works out to about $1.71 per hour overall (and can be offset by using a pre-authorized payment method).
Weekend premiums discourage clients who want weekend-only support. We lose some business because of it, but the trade-off is a more balanced distribution of hours across our team, which means better continuity for everyone.
Short Visit Premium
Visits shorter than 2 hours carry an $11 per hour premium. Short visits are much harder to staff and keep consistent, which is why most home care providers on Vancouver Island won't offer anything under 2 hours.
The math usually favours booking the full two hours: the difference between a 1.5 hour visit and a 2 hour visit is only $8. Whole-hour visits also tend to hold their schedule better and see fewer time changes down the road.
Complex Premium
A $6 per hour complex premium applies to work that carries higher risk to the caregiver or creates real staffing consistency problems. This comes up rarely and is always discussed in advance. It applies to vigilant overnight care where the caregiver has to stay awake at the request of the client or family, situations with high violence risk or serious behavioural challenges, and homes with active smoking or smoky work environments.