Choosing care
Questions to ask a home care agency
Agencies sound alike on the phone. These are the questions where the answers actually differ, and what a straight answer sounds like. Ask the same ones of everyone you call, including us.
Published
Licensing and caregiver screening
Licensed Home Care OrganizationCDSS license #374700397
Caregivers on the state registryLive Scan fingerprint check (CA DOJ and FBI) and TB test
Owned by a registered nurseMildred Kiminyei, RN
1. Are you licensed, and what is your licence number?
In California, a business that sends caregivers into homes must be licensed by the Department of Social Services as a Home Care Organization. The number is public, and you can look it up yourself.
A good answer gives you the number without hesitating. A bad answer is "we’re registered" or "we’re bonded and insured" used as a substitute. Those are different things.
2. Are caregivers your employees, or contractors?
This is the question with the biggest consequences and the least discussion. A licensed agency employs its caregivers: it runs payroll, withholds taxes, and carries workers’ compensation. A referral registry matches you with a self-employed caregiver, and the household can end up the employer.
It matters most when something goes wrong. If a caregiver is injured in your parent’s home, whose insurance responds? Ask directly, and ask whether workers’ compensation covers the person who will be in the house.
3. What screening and training does a caregiver go through?
California sets a floor: registration on the Home Care Aide Registry, a Live Scan background check through the Department of Justice and the FBI, a TB test, and entry-level plus annual training. Any licensed agency should describe that without prompting.
Then ask what they add: interviews, reference checks, a driving record for caregivers who drive clients, proof of car insurance, and condition-specific training such as dementia. Ask who supervises caregivers once they’re working, and how often.
4. What happens when a caregiver calls in sick?
This is the question families forget, and the one that decides how the arrangement feels after three months. If your parent needs help getting out of bed, a no-show isn’t an inconvenience, it’s a day in bed.
A good answer: the agency finds the replacement, tells you who is coming, and the replacement has read the care plan. A bad answer: "you’d call us and we’d see what we can do."
5. The money questions, all of them
Get these in one go, and get them in writing before care starts:
- The hourly rate, and what makes it go up or down
- The minimum visit length, and any minimum hours per week
- What nights, weekends, and holidays cost
- Whether there is a deposit, and how much
- How much notice you must give to cancel a shift without being charged
- How often you’re billed, and how you pay
- For live-in or 24-hour care, whether it’s billed as a daily rate or by the hour, and what the caregiver’s sleep and break arrangements are
- If you have long-term care insurance: do they bill the insurer directly, or give you invoices to submit?
An agency that won’t give a rate over the phone is not necessarily hiding something, but one that won’t put the terms in writing before care starts is.
6. What does the care plan cover, and who writes it?
Ask to see a blank one. It should list tasks, schedule, and the personal details that make care work: how your father likes to be addressed, what he eats, his routine, what to watch for given his conditions. Ask who writes it, whether anyone with clinical training reviews it, and what happens to it after a fall or a hospital stay.
Also ask what caregivers may not do. In California, non-medical caregivers don’t give injections, manage IVs, or do wound care. An agency that is vague about its limits is telling you something.
Red flags
- No licence number, or irritation at being asked for it
- Pressure to sign on the first call, or "this rate is only good today"
- No written agreement, or one you only see after care has started
- Vagueness about who employs the caregiver
- No in-home assessment before care begins
- Reviews that all arrived in the same week and say nothing specific
- Anyone who promises a specific caregiver will "always" be there. Illness and holidays exist
Our answers to these questions
We publish ours rather than making you ask. The licence number and how to look it up, and how caregivers are screened, supervised, and trained, are on our About page. Rates, the minimum visit, the deposit, cancellation notice, holidays, and how long-term care insurance is handled are on paying for care. What happens when a caregiver is sick, and how the care plan is written, are on how care starts.
If an agency you’re comparing answers any of this differently, ask them to explain why. That conversation usually tells you what you need to know.
Common questions
How do I check a California home care licence?
Ask the agency for its Home Care Organization licence number, then search it on the California Department of Social Services care facility search. If a number doesn’t come back, that is the answer.
Is an agency always better than hiring privately?
Not always, but the trade-offs are real. Hiring privately usually costs less per hour, and you become the employer: payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, and finding cover when your caregiver is ill. An agency costs more per hour and carries those.
Request a free in-home consultation
Tell us what’s going on and we’ll call you back to talk it through and set up a visit at the home. The consultation is free.
If it’s urgent, call instead of using the form.
- (858) 380-9599
- love@pendaseniorhomecare.com
- Office hours: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Care available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week