Home Healthcare. Home healthcare agencies treat patients like cash cows, they circle like starving vultures, waiting for their piece of that insurance check, charging anywhere from 2-5 times more than staffing costs. When a patient signs a contract with an agency, they are promised in-home care, whether it be a home health aid or a nurse, however the care being promised isn't exactly a "for sure" thing. The agency scrambles to find employees to work the requested hours, they call staff at all hours of the day, hoping (sometimes begging and pleading) that someone will pick up the hours. As a last resort they offer staff incentive pay, $1-$2/an hour more if they could "just do them this favor". Often times "that favor" is staff spending more on gas than what will be earned on their shift. Sometimes the agency cannot find anyone to work and will send schedulers to fill spots, unfortunately a lot of the time these shifts don't get filled at all and no one shows up to provide care for patients who are in dire need of it. There are also patients who are not in need of care. Say the client qualifies for in home post-op care, the insurance company will agree to pay for services as long as they are prescribed by a physician. If a client regains their independence in 4 weeks, but the agency can charge for 8 weeks, they will continue to send staff to the home, even if there is nothing left for them to do. It isn't unusual for an agency to instruct staff to remain in a client's driveway if they are requested by a client to leave early, they can legally claim those minutes of staff is on the property "2:35pm- Can you just wait in the driveway until 3:00pm? that way you're covered if the client falls"...yeah, right.

Do your research before hiring from an agency, if at all possible I highly recommend enlisting the help of friends and family before calling one.