Can you trust health care workers to do their job? What happens when you do not trust a health-care-giver who is very nice and get the work done very fast?

Only in a perfect world can you trust a stranger. No employee is perfect- not even me.

When a family with a disabled person needs extra ordinary care-taking life is stressful enough – then hire a kind acting stranger who  seem to have all the necessary skills to help out – but, they are only there for the pay check and all the extras they can rip off.

This  post will address some issues with health-care  employees that willfully cross the line of neglect and fraud, from my per-spective.

Trust in God, but lock your door…

For the last 6 1/2 years we have had some very good people in and out of our home to care for my adult son who – BAM! – got hit hard with Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.

We have also have a number of home health who care-givers who crossed the legal lines. With all of my years of experience as an RN that including doing home-health care, I have let my guard down. It is exhausting living with a disabled person, no matter how much you love them. We family members needs a break on a regular basis, extra outside care-givers are hired by what ever funds we can get to help do daily cares or even the more heavy lifting tasks.

Examples: Transferring from bed to wheelchair and back : do Range of Motion and strengthening exercises: bathing; dressing; assist with toileting….and more.

Unfortunately we live-in caregivers can not stand over the top of every hired out side employee every minute- it’s CRAZY to assume we can or even should have to. We feel relief when we sleep deprived parents or spouces can grab an extra few minutes of sleep or go out to have lunch with friends because the care-giver is at home doing what they were hired to do….

I let my guard down…

– all caregivers let their guard down. We are exhausted. There is nothing romantic about caring for an ailing loved one day after day – week after week- year after year.

In retrospect I should-a would-a could-a have done things differently when employees proudly proclaimed to be ‘very fast and very good.‘ – According to whom are they very good when they are very fast?

RED FLAG! Could “I work FAST” means they may cut too many corners in care-giving?

A former caregiver snapped one day when they were reprimanded for not recording* the time it took to do what task.

The reply was, ” I’m the only one who does anything around here. I should not be penalized for being much more efficient than you. No one needs to know that I do my worker faster than anyone else.”

Upon further investigation as the mother of the client being cared for it was discovered that the employee was telling the employer of record that they worked 8 hours a day instead of the actual 1.5 to 2 hours total they may have been in the home.

There had been sneaky excuses without making up the not just the time but the health care tasks that were needed to maintain the patients; skin integrity; the joints and muscles to prevent damage as the disease progressed….and more. it was not about being FAST. The prescribed duties to prevent complications were being neglected and act  of omission.

When is a line crossed that does harm to the patient when he/she consistently is not getting the care that is being paid for?

That fine line of neglect and or fraud can be crossed right under the noses of family members of a disabled or elderly patient…one…step…at…a…time…and with charming sweetness…it becomes..easier…and easier… to…get robbed…of…services…your…care-giver…is being…paid…to…do…causing your loved one…or…yourself…to be irreparably..harmed.

For your information:

Who ends up being responsible for a subordinate in the “nursing chain” of task delegation?

In our home care-situation with my disabled adult son, we employees do not work under a licence as would happen in a facility. We still have a “pecking order” in our home. My son is the ’employer’ who hires and fires his employees.

When an employee in your home is not doing what they should; makes decisions to do something against established protocol; does not communicate in writing or even verbally; leaves early within out doing the job and charges for it – guess who is also responsibly for neglect?

As the mother, father or wife in home of a disabled child or spouse, you are responsible for the employees neglect or fraud if you do not act soon enough to correct the employees action- even tho’ you are the case manager or the social worker supervising nor are the not the employee who is committing a crime- as a mandatory reporter you are held legally responsible for not acting on the patient behalf in a timely manner…no matter how many cries 

for help take days and weeks to get a response from the legal managers who don;t get back to you for days on end- they are on 

overload. The Hot-line for Medicaid fraud takes weeks to get a reply from. Even the Adult Protective Services don’t get out to see the victim for weeks.

Sure, call the police who can no nothing because your don;t have an evidence – the offender has the right to be innocent until proven guilty.

I do not sanction wrong-doings of any care-giver – in my home or in a facility work place EVER and I try various appropriate ways to correct the other employee I am stuck between a rock and hard place to legally prove there is a problem and how legally handle the problem with out legal black-lash from the employee even if they are dead wrong.

You can not just up and fire someone. There are steps to go through which protect the job of the employee…sneaky and manipulative as they may be…

a bad employee ripping you off has more rights than you do. it is your word against theirs and your responsibility to show the evidence. Sounds like a stressed our person – all law enforcement; social workers and doctors are so overworked will the make sense of your desperate cries for help? Probably not- exact why the elderly and disabled are getting neglected and dishonest health care-providers are getting awy with “murder”. ( My opinion.)

It’s complicated.

( My son has fired me about 15 times in 10 years, but, he never would fire a care-giver who had be-friend him. Huge RED FLAG! Do NOT cross the line of employees becoming personal friends. Keep it professional.)

Let it go? Forget the Forgive and Forget?

Every time a patient: the clients the family members; or manager of a facility or nursing agency Let it Go, for what ever reason, the perpetrator gets bolder and bolder and more sophisticated in crossing the line. 

These people share with others who will validate their faulty reason for  bending the rules or even breaking the law.

I think the hardest part of dealing with care-givers who break the law in little steps is to start is convincing the lonely home-bound patient who is capable of making their own decisions – up to this point that the very kind care-giver is doing them an injustice.

Strong Statements Must Be Made!

We all must stop allowing care-givers to choose to do neglectful acts; stop theft; stopping fraud is way past due.

We MUST SPEAK OUT to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Life will turn on a dime making you or a loved one a vulnerable person just ripe for some sociopath to be taken advantage of.

But, with so many chains of command especially when the funding like Medicare or Medicaid has to go past so many desks – waiting for a phone call or a written reply – from whom ever covers that area – some one gets SCREWED! There is never one phone to be made that fixes neglect or fraud in the health care setting.

Yes, it is a time consuming inconvenience to make legal stink. That is exactly WHY people who have no other skills can get certified as nursing assistants with the sole purpose of de-frauding the weak and vulnerable.

Before the good people who work hard in nursing homes and elderly or disabled home-care get your panties in a defensive wad consider this:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/edmund_burke_377528

When your co-workers are stealing from your employer; sleeping on the job; cutting too many corners with patients and you say NOTHING you are participating in your co-worker’s crimes as an accessory to a crime. if that is the case- SHAME on you!

And if you CNA’s do speak up and suffer from it – your life is miserable – I know. You have bills to pay – you don;t want to lose your job for making waves. In the long run because of budget over spends you will not get a raise and you may still get laid off due to loss of accreditation for the department you work in.

People who chose to steal from the work place; claim to do the job but don’t become pros at lying and manipulating so much that you can feel like the CRAZY one. They have you chasing your tail feeling like  the bad guy. We all suffer for the action of sociopaths.

• You feel guilty when the make there excuses.

For examples:

An employee or a co-worker sneaks off early or spends too much time on the phone. The excuse might be, ” cover for me. My kids has a school project they need help with.” Well, no, I don’t want any child to fail in school because the parent wasn’t there to help them

….wait – who agreed to come into work on a certain schedule? The kid’s project is NOT the employers nor a co-workers problem to cover for.


“I have to leave early. the family is celebrating my mother’s birthday. We are meeting at 5 to eat dinner.”
” It’s my dad’s birthday… I have a school conference at 6. I’m leaving early.”

Hold the birthday cake! When did you parents suddenly have a birthday? Who agreed to work at a certain time on a certain date?

“Disruptive people can be anywhere and everywhere at any time we interact,” Foster says. “When we don’t approach difficult topics, they take root and they grow like viruses.”

” My other job called me in to work. gotta go.” …and who has the responsibility to cover your in home patients care that was agreed upon 2 weeks ago?

No employee can bill Medicaid for hours they have clocked in at another job for the same time.

Yet, this is a SCAM we have seen in the city we lived in too many times….they get by with it by playing on the sympathy of the vulnerable patient who longs for people supposedly cares about them.

A bad coworker isn’t just annoying, they can actually be detrimental to your career. His or her behavior can make you feel constantly stressed, which decreases your productivity and can even lead to long-term health problems.

This quote is from an article titled: The 3 most common types of terrible coworkers and how to deal with them.   

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/3-common-types-of-terrible-coworkers-and-how-to-deal-with-them.html

This article above is worth reading tho’ not exactly focusing on a care-giver thief or one who bills for work they leave 4 hours early, but is very insightful on dealing with people who don’t do their job for what ever reason they seem to justify.

It is easy to say, “Your FIRED!” Donald Trump is so very good at uttering those 2 words. But, firing an employee is more complicated that saying those 2 words.

Those rule breaking stinkers end up seeming to have more rights to not be fired than the loss you or a loved one are suffering in the aftermath of being taken advantage of. all too often co-workers know that something is Rotten in Denmark, but do not want to get involved. they say nothing. How will the boss ever know if they do not have eye-witness facts?

I am going to address some of these stinking hazards of having employees you really need to get kicked to the curb– they have rights under the law and they know it. As an employer or in my case, the live-in mother- my gut feeling is not concrete evidence of wrong-doing.

Yes, once again, we have had issues with caregivers before who were hired to do certain health care tasks, but, chose to cut corners – ‘because’everyone else does…we are  entitled to extra compensation for doing all the work.’ 

From my experience when a home caregivers states, “I’m very fast and very good,” I think we family members of the elderly and disabled must proceed with caution about that employee or even a family member…no matter how sweet and helpful an employee seems to be. When the opportunity presents itself – you don’t know who will cross the line of committing a crime under your nose – yes- a CRIME – an your hands may be tied that hampers you from taking appropriate action.

Some people may be efficient, but, caring for an aging adult or a disabled person is not a race to be won. Careful attention to detail is a key factor in preventing secondary health issues that ultimately will harm the patient. I have a big gripe about negligence from omission once again by a charming and trusted care-giver in our home. And, I am NOT alone in anguish over omitted health care tasks and fraudulent over-billing when I expected to a loved one was being cared for as instructed.

If you have followed No Non-cents Nanna’s blog any length of time you may have read that my ‘full-time job’ has been to care for my once athletic- never been sick adult son who got-BOOM- hit hard with progressive MS.

Yes, I do know that you can hire an agency or some family members can get paid to help care for him. Back ground checks are done on employees.

But, there will only be a legal record if a person has caught nor reported. all too often the small omissions are not on the record. 

 Please, no unsolicited advice on MS cures. Our realistic goal is to maintain quality of life. 

Getting good care-giver help and or the funds to care for a loved one is not THAT easy. There are a lot of hoops to jump thru' but 
that's another blog.