Does your employer offer back-up elder care?

Hundreds do, among them corporations (Home Depot, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard), universities (Columbia, Northwestern), hospitals (Houston Methodist, Memorial Sloan-Kettering), law firms, nonprofit organizations, and several government agencies. They collectively cover millions of employees. It is not the solution we all want to the long-term care crisis and the over-reliance on unpaid family caregivers, but it could make your work life easier in a jam.

It usually operates this way: You've arranged home care for your mother, but her aide calls one night to say she has a sick child or a dead battery and can't be there to help in the morning. Or you suddenly need care for your dad, who is being discharged from the hospital and for the next few days can't make meals or take showers without assistance. You --- naturally --- have an important work deadline looming, or you have already used up your personal days for the year. Or you live two time zones away. To read more of this interesting article from The New York Times click here.