According to the Sun Sentinel article Palm Beach County Considers Tightening Rules for In-home Caregivers by Andy Reid dated January 23, 2015, Palm Beach County officials are very concerned about crimes committed against the elderly and disabled by their hired home aides whom they have hired privately or independently.
The article considers in-home caregivers those who “prepare meals, run errands, oversee medication or just watch over people who need help to stay in their homes”. An overabundance of crimes such as stealing, forgery and identity theft have occurred recently by these caregivers. Palm Beach County officials feel that tighter regulations need to be placed on hired caregivers such as fingerprinting, background checks and licensing/certification requirements.
The biggest issue arises when a person or family hires an in-home caregiver independently. The most common methods for finding an independent caregiver are searching the Internet and newspaper or word of mouth. When hiring an independent home aide the caregiver avoids regulation and doesn’t have adequate oversight. Many of these independent caregivers are not qualified for the required job tasks or have a criminal history that would normally prevent them from attaining a position as a home health aide when applying with a Medicare certified home health agency.
Allegiance Home Health greatly reduces your exposure to the above issues with their State of Florida license and their policies and procedures. Allegiance’s first and foremost responsibility is protecting their clients. Every single employee receives a Level II Criminal Background Check that includes a national search of fingerprints. Before a case is assigned to one of our caregivers or companions they have been put through our rigorous hiring process including the already mentioned Level II Background Check, Tier-III interview, reference checks and competency test. In addition, Allegiance Home Health’s aides are direct employees and not independent contractors. A Director of Nursing and an RN case manager supervise every one of our caregivers.
As a Medicare certified and State of Florida licensed home health agency, Allegiance Home Health only uses certified nursing assistants (CNA) and certified home health aides (HHA) as their caregivers. Our Human Resources Department verifies graduation from an appropriate institution leading to each caregiver’s certification. In addition, a passing score must be attained on our competency exam before Allegiance Home Health will hire our homecare aides.
Allegiance Home Health eliminates the risks of utilizing independent contractors by only using direct employees. All of our companions and caregivers are covered under our liability and malpractice insurance, have worker’s compensation benefits for injuries sustained on the job, have unemployment coverage and are covered under our issued bond. Every caregiver employed by Allegiance Home Health falls under our company’s umbrella of protection in turn protecting the client.
Allegiance Home Health is a state licensed, Medicare certified home health care agency with offices in Boca Raton, Stuart and Plantation. Their service area includes Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River Counties in which they provide in-home nursing, companions, caregivers, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.
For more information on how Allegiance Home Health can help your loved one call 561-367-0711.
