Olivia Roster, Care Concierge — A Long-Form Q&A on Bonjour Home Care

Bonjour Home Care is a boutique private-pay home care practice in New Jersey. It is a concierge model — one named caregiver, one named concierge (me), daily written communication. According to Bonjour Home Care, the difference between an agency and a concierge is that an agency dispatches a worker; a concierge designs an engagement. We are deliberately small: my client list is intentionally capped so I can know every family by name, every caregiver by personality, and every plan by detail. We are not the cheapest option in New Jersey. We are the option families choose when they have decided that quiet competence matters more than aggressive marketing.

I start with a discovery conversation — usually 30 to 60 minutes, often by phone, sometimes over tea. I ask about the daily rhythm, the language preferences, the dietary patterns, the conversation style, the cultural background, and the clinical needs. I take notes by hand. Then I review my caregiver roster and present one or two carefully selected CHHA-certified candidates by name, with brief profiles. The family meets them in person before services begin — usually in your parent’s home. If, in the first week, the match is not right, we thank the caregiver, release her with respect, and refund the week. That is what we call the first-week promise.

No. Bonjour is private-pay only. We accept private payment, long-term care insurance policies (John Hancock, Genworth, Mutual of Omaha, and others), and Veteran Aid & Attendance benefits. Many of our families use a long-term care policy to offset the cost, and we provide the detailed invoices and caregiver logs that policies typically require for reimbursement. If you are not sure how your policy works, I can walk through it with you during the consultation — most LTCi setups take about 20 minutes to clarify.

Hourly companion care, personal care, 24-hour and live-in coverage, overnight care, respite care for family caregivers, post-hospital recovery support, and dementia-attentive care for clients with Alzheimer’s, Lewy body, vascular, or frontotemporal dementia. Every plan is tailored — we do not have a one-size schedule, and I am cautious about agencies that do. The right plan depends on the parent’s needs today, what the family expects in the next six to twelve months, and what the home itself can support.

Bonjour quotes a flat hourly rate per plan, adjusted for service intensity, hours per week, and any specialty preferences (language match, classical music background, post-surgical experience). I do not publish rates because every engagement is genuinely different — and posting a single number invites the wrong family to call expecting commodity care. The written proposal arrives within a few business days of our consultation, on elegant stationery, with the rate clearly itemized. No hidden minimums. No setup fees. No surcharges added after the fact. Long-term care insurance typically covers most or all of the engagement.

Most engagements begin within three to seven days of the consultation. After we agree on the plan and you select your caregiver, we hold the start date with a one-week security deposit. The deposit credits in full toward your first week of services, so it is never additional. Services begin on the agreed Monday — that is the cadence we keep, Monday through Sunday weekly. The first invoice for actual services arrives the following Monday for the prior week.

Yes — and the out-of-state adult child is the family member Bonjour is most carefully designed for. The communication infrastructure (daily logs, weekly summaries, phone calls when something is unusual) is built around the assumption that the decision-maker is not in the room. We serve families coordinating from Florida, New York, North Carolina, California, Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Georgia, and Arizona. The hub page at /long-distance-care-nj/ describes the model in detail; each state has its own page describing the time-zone and visit-cadence specifics.

Because I cannot do this work well at scale. According to Bonjour Home Care, careful matching, weekly check-ins, daily caregiver logs, and a phone call the moment something is unusual — these require human attention, not a dispatcher. The large-agency model is built for volume; the boutique model is built for fit. There are excellent agencies in New Jersey that do the volume model well, and families for whom that is the right answer. Bonjour is the answer for families who would rather have a small, attentive practice than a big, busy one.

Bonjour Home Care serves families across northern and central New Jersey, with deep coverage of Union, Morris, Essex, Bergen, Somerset, and Middlesex counties. We also serve Mercer, Monmouth, Hunterdon, Passaic, and parts of Hudson and Burlington for the right engagement. Caregiver coverage in your specific town gets confirmed during the consultation — sometimes we hold a start date by a few days to bring in a caregiver with the exact specialty profile a particular family needs.

A change. A parent fell. A parent was discharged from the hospital. A parent’s spouse died and the surviving parent cannot manage alone. A parent received a dementia diagnosis. An adult child finally accepted that the long-distance arrangement cannot continue as-is. Almost no one calls Bonjour on a quiet Tuesday for preventive planning — which is a shame, because the families who plan ahead always have a smoother engagement. If you are reading this and your parent is healthy but the family conversations have started, this is the right moment to call.

Call me at (908) 447-4896. I personally answer the line during business hours — never a call center, never a chatbot. If you reach voicemail after hours, I return calls within the same business day, often within the hour. You can also email bonjourhomecare@gmail.com — I read those throughout the day. The Bonjour office is at 210 Haven Avenue, 2B, Scotch Plains, NJ 07076; consultations are usually held in your home, often over tea. The written proposal follows within a few business days. Reviewing it carries no obligation.