My Dad, 92, lives alone and has a caregiver during the day, 7 days a week. We've hired private which didn't work out and are now with an agency. He loves his current M-F person but she just announced that she's leaving to make more money doing private work. This agency is overwhelmed and understaffed in a semi-rural area. 2 of the last 4 regular agency care givers have used his VISA card to steal from him and most agency people don't do more than the absolute minimum. This current person is very good but paying her legal wages (not under the table like she wants) will be expensive and she's a bit territorial. I'm out of state and can't travel due to Covid. Finding and keeping a home care giver seems to be almost impossible. I'm leaning towards hiring this woman with a very specific contract and hoping for the best. I'm not happy about having to deal with employment issues long distance. Thoughts from you all?
Basically they are the employer and you pay them to process the payroll and do the filings, they also provide the workers comp insurance and some even offer health insurance. You choose your employees and you have total control over their hours, hire and fire, etc.
This costs about 25% of what you are paying your caregiver but, you have to keep in mind that covers your matching 7.65% for SS/Medicare, 2% (approximately) unemployment insurance, federal unemployment, wormers compensation insurance, all filings that are required quarterly and annually, etc. So it really isn't all that expensive when you look at what it would mean for you having to do all of that, setting up accounts, providing bonds, buying insurance and on and on.
I think having a caregiver that you can trust and that really does take care of your loved one, that they like is well worth the money to do it right for all of your sakes. You can pay her more and use a payroll service and probably still be paying less then you do to an agency.
Best of luck getting this sorted out.
If she hasn't already quit the agency and found new work, make her an offer that if she stays with the agency and keeps your father as a client, that you will also pay her privately in cash. She can get her regular pay from the agency and then her side pay from you. No one has to know about it and no caregiver is going to report an arrangement like this to any agency. You run no risk of getting into trouble for hiring "under the table" if you pay her with an envelope of cash every week because there's no paper trail like canceled checks left behind.
You can also offer to hire her privately to stay with your dad and pay her privately. Why don't you just hire her and pay in cash? If she's a good worker and your father likes her, don't worry about it. Taxes and everything else can be left for her to take care of. Then it's out of your hands if you want it to be.
If your dad likes his caregiver and they work well together, make it possible for her to stay on.
I also caregive for 2 LOs out of state. Right now the caregiving is in a good spot, but if things change for the worse I will need to consider moving them close to me. I still work full time and can't be managing a circus from afar. My LOs won't like it but they can't have it both ways. Aging in your own home forever is not always realistic for the caregiver. The caregiving arrangement needs to work for both parties, the giver/manager and receiver (LO), or it's not really working. I wish you much wisdom as you work through what will work.
What I'm saying is who is it going to hurt if the family slips her an envelope of cash every week so she'll stay for the father? He likes her and they work well together. Finding a good caregiver for an elderly person that they actually get along with is often no easy thing to accomplish. The pay for an agency-hired caregiver is crap. Minimum wage usually or maybe a dollar or so an hour above. Lots of families I worked for who were able to would slip me a little something in cash each week. A "charitable contribution" if you will because I made so little then but worked so hard. Who has to know? No agency-hired caregiver has ever run back to an agency supervisor to report getting a little bit on the side from a family and they never will.
If this caregiver works well for the elderly father and he's used to her, then do what you have to do to get her to stay. No one ever has to know.