Five steps from the first phone call to the first shift

This desk was built for a particular reader: the son, usually somewhere between fifty and sixty-five, who has already decided his mother or father needs help at home and has already spent days on hold. He does not need to be persuaded that care matters. He needs the order of operations. That is what this page is.

Keep a legal pad next to you. Every step ends with a line to write, and by the end of step five the pad is your hiring file.

1. Pick a lane

   There are two ways to bring in non-medical help. You can go through an agency, which recruits, screens, pays and replaces the caregiver, or you can hire a person directly and become the employer. Nothing else on this desk makes sense until that choice is on paper, because the questions, the check and the paperwork all change with it.

   Open sheet 01, agency or independent, then sheet 10, the private-hire tradeoffs. If the discharge planner used the words home health, read sheet 04 first, because that is a different product. If you are leaning toward Lane B, read sheet 05 on taxes before you offer anyone a wage. If your mother lives alone, sheet 09 puts the whole sequence on one page.

   Write down: Lane A or Lane B, and why, in one sentence.

2. The phone call and the interview

   Lane A starts with a call to an office. Lane B starts with a conversation with a person. Both go better with numbered questions and a place to write the answer as you hear it. A vague answer is information too.

   Use sheet 02 for the office, sheet 11 for the person who will actually be in the house, and keep sheet 12, the red flags, open in another tab.

   Write down: who employs the caregiver, who supervises, and what happens when a shift is missed.

3. The check

   Missouri runs the Family Care Safety Registry. A caregiver registers, and an employer can then request background information by phone, by form or online. The check has limits the state spells out, and it does not replace references or your own judgment in the interview.

   Read sheet 03 for the registry in the state's own words, and sheet 13 for what to ask a company about its screening and training.

   Write down: the date the check was requested, and by whom.

4. Hours and the first 72 hours

   Most confusion about cost and start dates is really confusion about hours. Turn the day into blocks first. Then ask about minimum shifts and how soon someone could start, and plan the first visit for a day you can be in the house.

   In order: sheet 16, how many hours; sheet 18, a few hours a day; sheet 17, minimum hours; sheet 06, how fast it can start; sheet 15, a start this week; sheet 14, what happens on a shift; and sheet 07, the first 72 hours.

   Write down: the four blocks, the first shift date, and a one-line log for days one, two and three.

5. When it is not working

   Some hires do not fit. Late arrivals, a blank notebook, an argument about the shower: raise it early and specifically, ask for a different person or change the schedule, and know which state lines exist for the serious end. Anything about health goes to the doctor.

   Read sheet 08, and keep the local help page bookmarked.

   Write down: what happened, the date, and who you told.

If you only have ten minutes tonight

Skip to the comparison table on the home page. It sets the agency lane and the direct-hire lane side by side on eight rows, from the IRS, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Missouri's Division of Employment Security and Family Care Alliance's hiring guide. Then do the first move on the home page's this week list: write the day in four blocks. Everything else can wait until morning.

Every fact on these sheets links to a public page, and every page is listed on the sources page with the date it was opened. How the sheets are written, and the one paid placement on the site, are explained on how we write.