You have decided your dad needs someone in the house, and now you have to hire the right person without losing another week to phone calls.
A plain field guide to hiring non-medical in-home care in west St. Louis County: which lane to pick, what to ask, who to check, and what the first days actually look like after you say yes.
Medicare will not pay
Medicare does not cover a non-medical caregiver at home when personal care and company are the only help she needs. Sources
You can check the person
Missouri runs a Family Care Safety Registry, and a background screening on a caregiver can be requested through it. Sources
Hiring solo has paperwork
Pay a caregiver yourself instead of through a company and you may become a household employer under the IRS rules. Sources
Hiring the caregiver, in eighteen short reads
Each one answers the question you are actually asking with the legal pad in front of you. No prices, no sales pitch, just the next move and what to write down.
Agency, or hire it yourself
The two lanes side by side, same rows in both: who builds the schedule, who covers a no-show, who runs the check, who is the employer, who you call at 2am.
Read this firstWhat to ask on the phone
The numbered questions for any home care company, and the answers that tell you to keep looking.
ReadChecking the person in Missouri
What the Family Care Safety Registry is, how a family uses it, and what a registry check does not tell you.
ReadHome care vs home health
The one distinction that sorts out most of the confused calls, and what Medicare does and does not cover.
ReadIf you hire on your own
The tax and paperwork pages you will need, what a household employer is, and who to ask.
ReadHours, shifts, and how fast
What to have ready before you call, how to think in shifts instead of a few hours, and honest language about start dates.
ReadThe first 72 hours
The first visit, the one-page sheet on the fridge, and the short log that tells you by day three whether it is working.
ReadWhen it is not working
How to raise it, how to ask for a different caregiver, and the public numbers to call in Missouri.
ReadShe lives alone. Now hire
The sequence for a mother already in the house: the tasks, the lane, the Missouri check, the first visit.
ReadPrivate hire, the tradeoffs
Pros and cons of hiring a private caregiver instead of an agency, in public rows, with no winner.
ReadInterviewing the person
Questions for the attendant in the chair, not the office: a bath, a refusal, 2am, the notebook, references.
ReadRed flags on the pad
Walk-away signs: answers you cannot write down, a registry they will not use, a packet they will not send.
ReadHow they screen and train
What to ask about background checks, the Family Care Safety Registry, training, and what a check does not tell you.
ReadWhat the shift actually is
Bathing, meals, moving from bed to chair, companionship, a ride if you ask, and where nursing starts.
ReadA start this week
The exact question to ask, what to have ready, and why this desk will not promise anyone a date.
ReadHow many hours a week
Ask her, walk the house, turn what you see into morning, afternoon, evening, and overnight blocks.
ReadIs there a minimum
An agency might have a minimum. This desk will not invent the number. Here is how to ask it.
ReadJust a few hours a day
A morning block or an evening block, not a drop-by, plus the difference between that and respite.
Read
Hiring someone is not handing your dad over. It is staying in charge of the plan.
You still set the hours, you still say what the job is, and you still decide when it is working. A paid caregiver fills the shifts you cannot cover yourself: the mornings, the overnights, the hours you are at work. That is not giving up on him. It is how a careful plan actually holds together for the long run.
Have New Plan Care call you
Tell them who needs help and roughly when. It goes to New Plan Care, the paid placement above, and nowhere else. No lists of companies, no scoring.