Hire Caregiver STL

The hiring week

You already decided. Now hire.

You already decided someone needs to be in the house, and now you have to hire. You are sitting at a table in Chesterfield or Ballwin or Eureka with a legal pad, three phone numbers from your sister, and a neighbor who said she knows a woman who does this. You have already lost a week to calls. You want a checklist, the questions to ask, the red flags, and what happens in the first 72 hours after you say yes. This desk is that checklist. Every figure here points at a public page. Nothing here is a price.

Two lanes

Agency, or hire it yourself

Family Caregiver Alliance draws the same fork you are staring at. One lane is a home care company: they handle screening, pay, and a substitute if a worker is sick. The other lane is a private hire: you are the employer, and if the worker is sick it is your job to find the alternate. Neither lane is medical care. Missouri’s health department adds a fact that surprises most families on the first call: for private duty and private pay companion and personal care, no license is issued in Missouri for that type of company. That is the state’s description of the lane, not a smear. The questions still get asked. The registry check still gets run.

Agency lane

  • The company builds the schedule.
  • You ask who covers a no-show, in writing.
  • You ask how they screen. You still call references.
  • They run payroll. You are the client, not the employer.
  • You call the office at 2am, and you write down who answered.

Hire-it-yourself lane

  • You build the schedule.
  • A no-show is your problem that morning.
  • You run the Missouri Family Care Safety Registry request.
  • If you control the work and how it is done, the IRS may treat you as a household employer.
  • You are the 2am number.

The two-lane sheet is Agency or hire it yourself. It gives no verdict. Same rows, both sides, from Family Caregiver Alliance and the National Institute on Aging.

The eight sheets

Open the page for the job in front of you

Work them in order from a blank pad, or skip to the call you have to make in the morning.

Sheet 01Agency vs independent caregiver: which is better for an elderly parent?Two lanes, same rows. No score. No price. Sheet 02Questions to ask a home care agency before hiringA numbered scorecard. A good answer sounds like. Walk away if. Sheet 03Missouri Family Care Safety Registry: how to check a caregiverSeven sources, the state’s number, and what a check does not tell you. Sheet 04Non-medical home care vs home health: what is the differenceMedicare visits are not a person in the house at 2am. Sheet 05If I hire a caregiver myself, do I have to pay taxes?IRS Publication 926 and Missouri unemployment, as they print them. Sheet 06How fast can a home care agency start after the first callHours, overnight, what to have ready. Availability decides it. Sheet 07What happens on the first day a caregiver comes to the houseThe fridge sheet, the first shift, and a log through hour 72. Sheet 08What to do if the caregiver is not working outRaise it, switch, cover a no-show, and the Missouri numbers.

Tonight

What to do before you go to bed

The National Institute on Aging says the best way to know what someone needs is to ask them directly. Walk the house once and write the actual tasks. NIA’s personal-care list is bathing, dressing, grooming, using the toilet, eating, and moving around. That list is the job description and the shift list.

  1. Write the hours you cannot cover. Morning, afternoon, evening, overnight. Not a feeling. A grid.
  2. Write the town: Ballwin, Chesterfield, Eureka, Glencoe, Grover, Pacific, Valley Park, or St. Louis city. The company will ask. The Area Agency on Aging that covers the address is different for the county and the city.
  3. Pick a lane for the first call. You can change later. You cannot start if you stay in the fork.
  4. If the lane is a company, open the scorecard and write the answers in the blanks.
  5. If the lane is a private hire, open the registry sheet and the tax map before you make an offer.

Aging Ahead is the Area Agency on Aging for St. Louis, St. Charles, Franklin, and Jefferson counties. The St. Louis Area Agency on Aging covers the city and can be reached at (314) 612-5918. The Eldercare Locator is the federal door for in-home help anywhere: eldercare.acl.gov or 800-677-1116.

Ask for a call

Name, phone, town. That is the whole form.

This form goes to New Plan Care, the paid placement above. It is not a match service or a ranking. If you would rather not fill it in, Call (314) 405-0887.

or Call (314) 405-0887

We ask for a name, a phone number, and a town or ZIP. Do not type health details into this form. No diagnosis, no medication list, no condition. Symptom and dose questions go to the physician already treating the person in the house.

Two other desks, if the question is money

This site is the hiring sheet. It does not print who pays. Paying for Care STL maps the doors that cover non-medical hours, and it prints no rate on any of those doors. Who Pays for Mom is the family fight about the bill, when siblings do not agree.

Every claim on this clipboard points at a public URL on the sources page. Who publishes this is on the about page.