Screening caregivers
-
- October
- 7
I was at the doctor’s office yesterday when an older man arrived with his caregiver for an appointment.
He had neglected to bring his insurance card. All his caregiver had was his Social Security number, a dangerous bit of information if it gets into the wrong hands.
As it turned out, the caregiver emptied the man’s wallet and found his Medicare card stuffed in among all sorts of papers. So the story had a happy ending. I mean the man got to see the doctor and didn’t have to worry about his lost insurance card.
But it left me thinking: how do you screen a caregiver to make sure your loved one doesn’t get scammed? Or even worse, victimized?
Here’s a link to a recent story on that topic from the AARP Bulletin.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 4:43 pm by Linda Lombroso.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
Baby boomer Linda Lombroso was born in Queens and grew up in Port Washington. She began her journalism career at New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, and came back to the field after spending 10 years as a stay-at-home mother. Linda joined The Journal News in 1997 and has been a Life & Style writer since 2000. She has three children.
I am a long term care insurance agent, and I have hired unlicensed caregivers for my own family.
When interviewing potential caregivers, I tell them they will be asked to come down to the local police station, with ID and their Social security number, so the police can run a criminal check.
Local police are happy to run a check on someone you plan on giving access to your home. Those with something to hide will be very unlikely to want to accompany you to the police station.
I trust this approach more than the say-so of an agency.