What does a non-medical caregiver actually do during a shift?

Sheet 14 · The shift

Published September 11, 2026. Desk byline, no clinician. Every fact links to its source.

This is the job description sheet. You are not asking which product you bought. That split lives on another page. You are asking what a non-medical caregiver actually does during a shift in a house in Ballwin, Eureka, Pacific, or the city: the order of the work, what goes on the fridge, where prompting stops and nursing starts, and what they do not do. Write the tasks that apply. Circle them. The shift is not a guessing game.

What does a non-medical caregiver actually do during a shift?

The National Institute on Aging’s list is the job. Older adults may need help with personal care, meaning everyday activities such as bathing, dressing, grooming, using the toilet, eating, and moving around, for example getting out of bed and into a chair. The same page lists household chores, grocery help, laundry, and transportation to the doctor’s office. Some people who live alone simply need someone to check on them. NIA’s getting-started list is the same work: personal care, household tasks, preparing food, transportation such as car rides to appointments. The FAQ names household chores, preparing meals, getting dressed, or going to the bathroom.

Missouri DHSS puts that work in the private-duty, private-pay type when you are buying shifts: care in shifts, no physician order needed for aide personal care, respite, or companion care, and no license issued in Missouri for that type of company. Family Caregiver Alliance says a written care plan outlines the paid caregiver’s duties, and that a written schedule is useful, and essential if more than one caregiver is coming. Print it. Tape it. Walk the shift in order against that paper.

1. Arrive

   Someone from the family should be there the first time. FCA says it will be important, at first, to be present to help the attendant and the care receiver establish a successful relationship, and to show how you do things. Name, clock, key. Write-in: who is at the door, what time ________

2. Fridge sheet

   One page. Daily order in the times they actually happen. Where the towels, walker, spare key, and dog food live. Phone numbers: you, one backup, the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, 911. The doctor’s number is for you or a true emergency, not for the caregiver to interpret a symptom. FCA calls the notebook in the house essential if the care receiver has dementia. Write-in: fridge sheet taped, yes / no ________

3. Personal care

   Bathing, dressing, grooming, using the toilet, eating, moving from bed to chair. Circle what applies. Presence in the house, not a nurse visit. If a task has become wound care, stop and ask the physician. Write-in, circle: bathing / dressing / grooming / toilet / eating / bed to chair ________

4. Meals

   Preparing food is on NIA’s getting-started list. What they will actually eat, who shops. Not a new diet order. Write-in: meals this shift ________

5. Household

   Household chores, grocery help, laundry. NIA names them. They belong on the care plan if you want them done. Write-in: household this shift ________

6. Prompting, not medicine

   A reminder that it is time to take the tablets already in the labeled box is prompting. Deciding which tablets those should be is medicine. Write on the fridge: “Remind at breakfast and bedtime. Do not decide what goes in the box.”

7. Transportation, if you asked

   A ride to the doctor’s office is on NIA’s list. It is not an assumption. Ask whose car before the shift. Write the answer.

8. Companionship and check-ins

   NIA says some people who live alone simply need someone to check on them. Sitting in the chair, the conversation, the walk to the mailbox if the sheet says so: that is presence. It is still on the log.

9. Log, then leave

   One line before they go: what got done, what they ate, how the bath or dressing went, what the next person needs to know. FCA says an agency can provide a substitute if a worker is sick. Write-in: log, backup ________

Circle what applies. Leave the rest off so nobody invents a task at 2am. If overnight, ask whether the person will be awake or is expected to sleep, and write the answer. They do not diagnose, treat, change a dose, do wound care, give injections, or decide what a symptom means. If a company offers to do any of those, ask which clinician is ordering it.

Medicare does not buy this shift when personal care is the only care needed. Medicare.gov says Medicare does not pay for 24-hour-a-day care at your home, home meal delivery, homemaker services like shopping and cleaning unrelated to your care plan, or custodial or personal care when that is the only care you need. In most cases, “part-time or intermittent” means skilled nursing care and home health aide services up to 8 hours a day combined, for a maximum of 28 hours a week. That figure is home health visits, not a companion shift. The long-term care page says Medicare does not pay for long-term care. Missouri DSS prints that MO HealthNet is different than Medicare and can help with benefits not normally covered, such as nursing home care and personal care services. Who in the family pays the shift is a different fight. Who Pays for Mom is the desk for that argument. This sheet only names the job.

Can a caregiver drive my dad to doctor appointments?

Ask before you hire, and again before the morning of the appointment. NIA lists transportation services that drive people to and from medical appointments among the services for older adults living at home. Getting-started names transportation such as car rides to appointments with personal care and household tasks. Whether this caregiver may use your car, their car, or a company car is a company question or, if you hired privately, a question for your own insurer. Write the answer. Do not find out in the driveway. Write-in: drive, yes / no ________ Whose car ________ Whose insurance ________ Wait or return ________

A ride is still not nursing. They can take him to the office. They cannot decide what the doctor should order, and they cannot change the tablets after the visit unless the physician already changed them and you updated the labeled box.

Is prompting him to take the tablets in his labeled box the same as nursing?

No. Prompting is a reminder. Nursing is a decision. A non-medical caregiver can say it is time, point at the labeled box, and watch him take what is already in that slot. They do not decide which tablets those should be. They do not skip a dose, add a tablet from a bottle, do wound care, or give injections. If the box is empty, or he will not take what is in it, they call you. If something looks like a medical change, they call you, and you call the physician or the visiting nurse if home health is already in the plan.

Write this line on the fridge: “Remind at breakfast and bedtime. Do not decide what goes in the box. If the box is wrong, call ________.”

The two kinds of help can run in the same house at the same time: a home health nurse at 10am, a non-medical caregiver at 2am. They are not substitutes. DHSS says no physician order is needed in Missouri for aide personal care, respite, or companion care in the private-duty type. That sentence is about the order. It is not permission to cross the nursing line. FCA says to know how and when to call 911, and that it takes two or three weeks to determine if your loved one, the home care worker, and you are a good match. The log is how you see the job. NIA says the best way to know what someone needs is to ask them directly, then look at meals, bathing, clothing, clutter, whether medications are being taken, weight change, poor hygiene, confusion, falls, loneliness, and trouble walking. Circle the NIA tasks. Leave the clinical ones with the physician.

What to do tonight

1. Write the fridge sheet. One page. Tonight, not in the morning while they are parking.
2. Circle the NIA tasks that apply in this house: bathing, dressing, grooming, toilet, eating, bed to chair, meals, household, a ride, a check-in.
3. Write the labeled-box line exactly: remind, do not decide. Put your number on that line.
4. Ask, before shift one, whether this caregiver may drive, whose car, whose insurance. Write the answer.
5. Leave a one-line log on the counter. Ask for one line before they go.
6. Be in the house for the start of shift one, or send the sibling who knows where the extra towels live.

When to ask the care team or the doctor

Whether a task is skilled, whether home health belongs in the plan, whether a parent is homebound, and whether they can be left alone are questions for the physician. A change in walking, a new confusion, a refusal to eat, a fall, a fever, or a change in the tablets already ordered is not a question for this desk and it is not a question for a non-medical caregiver to settle. Call the physician, or the visiting nurse if home health is already in the plan. Wound care, injections, catheters, feeding tubes, and a new dose are not this shift. If a company offers to do any of those, ask which clinician is ordering it, and stop until you have that answer.

Featured, and paid for

New Plan Care

New Plan Care is independently owned non-medical in-home care, Chesterfield, for the shift this page names: bathing, dressing, meals, moving from bed to chair, companionship, a ride if you ask, in Ballwin, Chesterfield, Eureka, Glencoe, Grover, Pacific, Valley Park and St. Louis. Call (314) 405-0887 and ask what they put on the fridge sheet before someone comes to the door.

New Plan Care pays for this spot. It is a client of OwnersFirm, which publishes this site, so read it as an advertisement with a phone number rather than as a result, a rank or a recommendation drawn from any of the articles on this page.

Next sheets

• Non-medical home care vs home health: what is the difference
• What happens on the first day a caregiver comes to the house

Sources opened 11 September 2026. Full list on the sources page.