AgingCare

Working with this agency was like finding temporary help. It didn’t feel like they were really trying to find someone that would fit our needs. They have to ask the caregivers if they even want the job and half the time it seems like they lie to the caregivers to get them to go. The pay the caregivers receive is abysmal and it just seems like the agency doesn’t care whatsoever. I wish I could work with the caregivers directly and just keep the agency out of it. They’re rarely available during the weekends and it’s hard to speak to the same person more than once. The one person that did come out here was pretty good, the problem we had was with her availability and anytime we’d try to get them back, they would be too busy. I do not recommend them.

Home Instead came with a very good reputation, but unfortunately, our experience has not matched that. We have had several issues with the caregivers there, including people arriving late or staying late, Staying on their phones during shifts, lying about shift times, and not allowing my loved one to get up. One caretaker would not let my loved one get up and walk in his own house for fear he would fall. When he tried to get up, she would immediately make him sit back down. Some of the caregivers were great and got along really well with my loved one, but most have not been very good. I feel that another service might be a better fit for us.

The care from this company wasn’t as good as I was hoping for. The first few interactions started out really nice. They came on time and the coordination was really nice and sweet. She really too the time to listen to my needs and was willing to accommodate to what my mother needed. When it came down to it, the people they sent to my home were inexperienced. They didn’t know how to do basic things like empty a bedside commode. There was one time where I had two people here and I had sent one of them home a few hours early. The manager wanted to charge me for the full time they were both supposed to be there even though she left early. I decided to stop using them because of that. The manager seemed really greedy. They cared about their own time but didn’t care about my time and that I was paying for it. I liked that most of them kept the area they were working in clean, but the last person that came didn’t really do that. I would not recommend this care service.

I ended up not using this service. While they were quick to respond initially and sounded like a good organization, they seemed unorganized thereafter so I cancelled the service.

They do not drug screen aides. Can't provide same aide on any given day. Don't want a different person every day/ every shift in my parent's home. Located in Waterville. Think this will be too far for a Lambertville job. Just too many variables for things to not work out.

My mom did great with the caregivers that helped her and she liked them too. The caregiver did what they were suppose to do. However, it was an okay experience for me. I was told they would bring some equipment to help my mom. I had to remind them to bring it after they came to the house. They also use a booklet to track the care and her health information. Their portal does not allow me the access to see what they did or get information about her weight, etc. I sent an email to them and let them know about the matter. I never got a response back. They can improve with customer service, better communication, and upgrade their internet portal for family access.

My loved one is doing okay in their home. I have addressed some concerns of mine and have seen some improvement but I am not fully satisfied. They can get people that aren't teenagers or college students. The meals, activities, and cleanliness are okay but can be better.

The service was good for my father; however we were mislead about the charges and ended up with a much higher bill than anticipated. Make sure before you use them you know exactly what you will owe.

As the other review stated the owner is great but the service provided doesn't measure up. Lock up your valuables. How you can hire people to provide care and have them walk off with wedding, engagement and other family pieces is simply awful. This might be just one bad employee who slipped through background checks but it doesn't make it easier.

Mom has 24-hour care, with BrightStar on site for overnights, weekends, and some mornings -- 127 hours per week -- and another, excellent company the rest of the time. Most of BrightStar's on-site caregivers range from fairly good to very good and client-centered, but there are a handful of poorly qualified exceptions. The Columbia office administration and support is completely unsatisfactory. They're friendly enough on the telephone, and seem to "talk a good game," but they're terrible about caregiver management, assignments, and, apparently, follow-up, and don't return calls from messages left on their answering machine. Mom has told them of a few caregivers she really liked, but the office stopped sending them, assigning new people instead. We've had two caregivers double-booked, and, on three other occasions, >no one< showed up, along with several other instances of "assignment confusion." In the first three months, we've had a parade of 27 different caregivers, with NONE of them introduced to my mom by the staff; with seven or eight having no idea about the assignment -- nothing about Mom or her needs or her condition or her house, resources, medical needs, or equipment; with several either leaving early or not staying long enough to do a detailed "hand-off" (describing Mom's condition or what went on during the previous shift); and with several of them regularly sleeping during most of their shift. They've been informed -- multiple times -- that Mom has severe vision difficulties, but some caregivers persist in leaving things in unfamiliar places, where Mom cannot find them -- a flashlight left on a table on the other side of the room from where Mom was expecting to find it, for instance. A few do a nice job of checking the house, bundling up the trash, light "straightening," running the washer and dryer and dishwasher, occasional meals, etc., but others do nothing but sit -- or sleep. One caregiver last week left bodily waste on the bathroom stool seat and commode, and raced out, without telling her successor that the stool was stopped up. Last night, one caregiver was so soundly asleep that she could not hear Mom's ringing a call bell for assistance. I was in another part of the house, so Mom used the telephone to call my cell phone. I went to the sleeping caregiver and had to loudly call her name three times, before she awakened, then groggily and unevenly walked to my mother's bedside. Then, she denied that she had been asleep! Even though we like some of the caregivers, I do not recommend BrightStar.

Refurbished hospital. Has a creepy feel in hallways. Large apts available, strange layouts. Worn sofas and chairs in hallways.

They didn't work out at all. They came one day, and sent the wrong person, and didn't know what they were supposed to do. Someone came out and spent an hour getting to know what we wanted before starting service, it wasn't communicated to the girl that came the first day. They really dropped the ball.

They are not being very helpful or reliable. We are not happy. They have had issues getting people to work the weekend. The person they did have come out was on her cell phone so she was sent home, they were unable to find a replacement, and didn't let me know until late in the night, during that time my loved one fell and broke her hip. Justin and Rowena have been wonderful, but the lack of responsibility of the agency is not okay. This was a concern that I had brought up to them before and they convinced me it wouldn't be a problem, and now my loved one is paying the consequences.

There were a couple of times where nobody showed up. We tried overnights and one of the women fell asleep. There didn't seem to be much accountability. They charged more than they told us. They weren't very clear about how pricing worked. The owner didn't seem very concerned about the issues when I brought them up.

Senior Helpers overworks their experienced caregivers. When they couldn't send a qualified second caregiver, they just piled more hours on the first person. [removed] Would not recommend.

We are not happy with Senior Helpers at all. We are utilizing services for my grandmother and asked that they send a caregiver that doesn't have an accent since my grandmother is hard at hearing. They seemed to be accommodating until the caregiver actually came and was the exact opposite of what we asked for. She had an accent and her and my grandmother were unable to communicate. It took the agency three weeks to get a replacement and since then it's never the same caregiver. This has been a very frustrating experience. The current caregivers never do any cleaning and are definitely not self starters. I will not be utilizing their services for much longer and would not recommend to anyone.

I would not recommend SARA Companions for home companion services. The agency had difficulty providing consistency with the schedule of the live-in companions. Over 8 weeks, SARA sent 8 different companions. It was frustrating having attendants drop the case after deciding this assignment was not to their liking. The first attendant did not like working where a spouse was present. “They didn’t tell me the husband would be here.” That was a deal-breaker. On another occasion it was reported to me by SARA that one companion had no sleep overnight due to “6-8 trips to assist” my step-mom in the bathroom. This was not true and proved to be an effective ruse to dump the case and find one with less demanding. At which point, SARA Companions contacted me to discontinue the live-in service and convert the care plan to hourly resulting in a 130% increase. I slept through the night for three consecutive nights after SARA Companions left without any calls for an assist from my step-mom. My step-mom is very frail and needs assistance with transfer and toileting. She uses a walker and is a fall risk. I understand this is no small job. One attendant was watching as mom fell striking her head on the floor, for which she needed stitches in the ER. The live-in arrangement we agreed to, the attendant was to assist with transferring, dressing, showering, and toileting. Also, the caregiver provided some assistance with meal preparation, laundry and light housekeeping. Many attendants arrived and did not ask one question about the case. A few limited their personal interaction as much as possible. One companion suggested that a TV be provided for the bedroom in which she stayed. The living room had a TV but my Dad bought a TV for the home attendant’s bedroom. Positive: The staffing office managed to keep up with the high turnover but the quality of the caregivers was low. We found a live-in caregiver privately and received ten times the services without the attitude.

They have had a hard time finding people to fill the spot. They had one person come out once and they didn't work out, and we haven't heard from them since. We also had issues with their billing.

We did not have a good experience with Home Helpers, overall. I did appreciate that when we contacted them they were able to get things set up quickly and have someone sent out ASAP, but the service did not end up being up to par. Over the course of a week we had multiple people show up late (some up to an hour), and one no-show, none of these with any prior notification. The service was very unreliable, and we decided to go with another company after a week of these incidents.

I am not very thrilled with Synergy Home Care. The initial meeting that I had with them was not very warm and friendly. The lady walked in and did not even introduce herself, and sat there for a few hours just watching television. Mom was trying to talk to her and visit, and the lady wouldn't even respond. They later replaced her with another girl (named Paula) and she was just fantastic. Mom got to like Paula pretty well. But she later left, and they never let me know. At that point we had to seek out other options. I expected that there was some good training that these ladies had, but upon investigation that is not the case.