Start with the question you have.

Family Lantern serves Buffalo and surrounding communities across the Buffalo Niagara region. Use the service-area directory to find a page for your community.

You can ask about personal care, companionship, respite support, private-duty options, and home health services such as skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, or post-hospital recovery support.

No. Family Lantern is a service that pairs you with a home care or home health provider that specializes in the services you need. Every provider we work with is vetted by Family Lantern and has passed a background check before it can contact a family. We do not employ caregivers ourselves, so ask each provider how it screens and trains the caregivers it sends. We do not provide care ourselves. Each provider determines its own services, availability, pricing, and eligibility.

Carefully. Family Lantern works only with home care and home health companies we have vetted, and we complete a background check on every provider before it can contact a family. These are not random companies or cold callers: when a provider reaches out about your request, it is a professional provider we have already reviewed. Family Lantern does not employ caregivers, so we still encourage you to ask each provider how it screens, trains, and supervises the caregivers it sends.

No. A few details about the person, what is changing at home, your location, and your timing are enough to start a conversation.

There is no single Buffalo-area price. Cost depends on the type of support, schedule, minimum visit, provider, care needs, and whether the arrangement is private pay or covered through an applicable benefit. Ask each provider for a current written estimate and review the cost guide for questions to bring.

Your request may be shared with vetted providers that serve the area. Providers may contact you by phone, text, or email if you consent, but response timing depends on the provider and Family Lantern does not promise a particular response time.

With your consent, information from a request may be shared with third-party home care and home health providers for referral and marketing purposes. Those providers may use the details to contact you about care options.

The request form includes a separate consent checkbox for phone and text contact. Review the wording before submitting and only consent if you want vetted providers to contact you through those channels.

Include the kind of support you are considering, when you may need it, where care would take place, and anything about the daily routine that would help providers understand the request. Do not include emergency information; call 911 for a medical emergency.

Coverage depends on the service, the person’s situation, the plan, and the provider. Non-medical home care and skilled home health care are different, so ask each provider what payment options and eligibility rules apply to the service you are discussing.

That is okay. You can say you are exploring options and ask providers about typical schedules, services, rates, and what would need to happen before care begins.