Comparing Home Care Agency with Nurse Registry: What's The Difference?
When searching for at-home care in Palm Beach County, you may come across some home care companies that initially seem to offer significantly lower rates than others. Most families are unaware that there are two fundamentally different types of home care companies in Florida that are subject to different sets of State regulations and offer different services. It is important to be fully informed about the differences before making a decision. Learn how to compare home care agencies vs nurse registries in Palm Beach County and how to choose the right one for your loved one.
What is a Nurse Registry? | Advantages of a Home Care Agency | Disadvantages of a Nurse Registry | What's Right for You?
Advantages of a Home Care Agency
Visiting Angels Palm Beach Gardens is a fully licensed Home Health Agency, which has many advantages. As a home care agency, Visiting Angels directly employs the caregivers it sends to help you in your home. That means Visiting Angels is legally responsible for making sure that the caregivers are insured for liability and also covered by workers compensation insurance to protect you in case the caregiver is injured in your home. As the employer of the caregivers, Visiting Angels is responsible for compliance with labor and tax laws including overtime, minimum wage requirements, and payment of the employer’s portion of federal income taxes.
In addition, as a home care agency near you, Visiting Angels is responsible for recruiting vetting, training, educating, supervising and monitoring the caregivers it sends to help you or your loved one in the home. At Visiting Angels Palm Beach Gardens, we provide in-house training of our caregivers at our Resource Center. We also send a qualified replacement in case the caregiver is ill or otherwise unavailable to come. All this tends to ensure a higher level of care and services and reliability you can count on.
What is a Nurse Registry?
In contrast, most of the lower cost home care companies you might see online are not employer based Agencies, but rather mere referral services; although they seldom highlight this. These companies are called Nurse Registries, and they are a different animal altogether. Nurse registries refer you to caregivers who are independent contractors. They are prohibited by law from managing, supervising, monitoring or evaluating the independent contractor caregivers they refer. That means they can do very little in terms of quality control and correction. They may not even know if the caregiver they refer is actually in your home or not.
Disadvantages of a Nurse Registry
Nurse registries do not have the comprehensive insurance protection that Agencies have. The independent contractors they refer are not covered by workers compensation insurance; so if the caregiver is injured in your home (for example if they injure their back lifting or they trip and fall), you will be the liability target. This can amount to thousands of dollars of liability and legal defense costs as well.
Other risks associated with using a Registry rather than a home care agency relate to labor laws and taxes. Because the Nurse Registry is not the employer, you may be considered the caregiver’s employer, in which case you will be responsible for compliance with extensive federal and state labor regulations, which include overtime and travel time calculations, and other requirements. In addition, if the independent contractor caregiver does not pay the proper amount of federal and state taxes, you may be responsible.
What's Your Best Option? Palm Beach County Nurse Registry vs Home Care Agency
Researching the difference between a Palm Beach County nurse registry and home care agency? Most families find the appeal of a Nurse Registry is due to cost and affordability; however, as we've seen above, what at first might appear to be a bargain carries substantial risks and possible hidden costs. The reason Nurse Registries are able to charge less than Home Health Agencies is that they have much lower costs: they do not pay for workers compensation insurance, FICA taxes or the infrastructure necessary to educate, train, supervise and monitor caregivers.