Every provider you call will tell you what they do, and most of those answers sound alike. The real differences are in what they will not do, and those refusals are often said once, quickly, or not at all. This guide puts the refusals on paper so you can compare providers on the same terms. If you have not yet set the order of your calls, Start Here: Five Steps to Hiring lays out the sequence.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Step 1: Ask for the exclusion list in writing
Ask each provider for a written list of tasks their caregivers will not perform. Ask in the same message where you request their service list. If a provider has no written exclusions, write down what you heard on the call, send it back, and ask them to confirm or correct it. Do not accept 'we can talk about that' as an answer.
Step 2: Fill in the lines that usually come up
Write each provider's answer beside every line below. If they did not address a line, leave it blank and count the blank as an open question.
Lifting and transfers: ______________________
Bathing and toileting help: ______________________
Cooking and grocery trips: ______________________
Driving the parent: ______________________
Pets in the home: ______________________
Overnight or standby hours: ______________________
Housekeeping outside the parent's room: ______________________
Medication: ask the provider to write which medication tasks they will do, such as reminders and pharmacy pickup as an errand, and which stay with the family, the doctor and the pharmacist. ______________________
Step 3: Read the refusals as one set
Put the answers side by side. Look for a provider whose refusals leave a gap you cannot fill. If a provider will not lift and the parent needs help getting out of a chair, that gap decides whether the provider is a match, whatever the rate. The exclusion list does not give a provider a score. It tells you which tasks will land on the family, on a second hire, or on a different provider.
Questions to ask about each refusal
1. If the parent needs this task while your caregiver is on shift, who does it?
2. Is this a company rule or the individual caregiver's choice?
3. If the parent's needs change, will you change this line in the written agreement, and how?
4. When the gap happens, who do we call, and what happens to the rest of that shift?
Answers to listen for: a named fallback, a plain statement that the task is outside the service, and a commitment to put the answer in the agreement. Signs to walk away: 'the caregiver will probably be fine with it' with nothing written, an answer that changes depending on who asks, or a task the provider accepts on the phone and then refuses in the agreement.
Write it down before you compare
Provider name: ______________________
Exclusions in writing: yes / no
Tasks the parent needs that this provider refuses: ______________________
Who covers each gap, in writing: ______________________
Questions still open: ______________________
Once every provider has this page filled in, compare the gap lines first and the rate second. The desk's method for turning what providers say into written, comparable answers is set out in How We Write the Sheets.