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.)