CedscareUSA26 Asked October 21, 2026
Anyone else never quite sure the aide actually showed up?
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Most days the aide comes while I am at work, and by evening I realize I honestly do not know how the visit went. A quick "everything is fine" does not tell me much. I feel guilty double-checking on people, but I feel worse not knowing.
How do the rest of you handle this? Do you call your parent, text the aide, keep a notebook at the house, check cameras? And has there been a time you found out a visit did not happen the way you thought it did? I would love to hear how other people figured that out.
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they will be used to inputting electronic notes if they are CNA’s working at and or assisted living.
This is the same problem with signing a "sign in and out" sheet, you have no idea when the sheet was signed and actually who signed it.
We shifted to an electronic note system. I had an old cell phone and loaded the free care Plan app to the cell phone.. the caregiver logged their notes to the Care Plan app. I could login from my house to read the notes. They could also read notes from prior shifts.
We use this system for years. It worked really well.. if I left town for a week I could login and read the notes each day.
The caregivers took pride in their notes. Most were CNA‘s and were used to already doing this on their other jobs at skilled nursing facilities or assisted living.
If being paid by the elder to charge the elder and not provide the service I would think would be Elder Financial Abuse and they can be charged for that. If they have any certification that would probably be revoked.
If they are paid through a Medicare, Medicaid program that would be classified as Fraud and they could be charged.
Maybe a warning like this at the head of a book or sign in sheet might give them pause.
If the aide is through a homecare agency, there is a written careplan in the home. It will be a folder with the homecare company's name and contact information on it. The aide would also have to do a check list of tasks completed on her paperwork or through the app on her phone. I prefer the weekly work sheet and it comes with a copy. The aide leaves a copy in the client's home in folder and turns one into the office every week. They're more than welcome to take a picture of their sheets for their own records.
If you hired privately, that's a different story. You could install a doorbell camera on the doors. I have a professional aquaintance in the homecare business. She sent a caregiver onto a job at a home that had two doorbell cams front and back. The aide would come in through the front door. The client was invalid from dementia. She would change and wash them then feed them breakfast. She'd exit the house through the kitchen window when she was finished and go to her other caregiver job. Her shift was six hours five days a week. She was working about 90 minutes five days a week. She got back in the house the same way and would leave through the front door when her shift was over.
She claimed she didn't have a car, and for that client she didn't need one. She had a car and would park it on the street out of range of the doorbell cam. This went on for several months. One of the neighbors came by for a visit and was ringing the back doorbell and no one was answering. The neighbor literally saw the aide climbing in the kitchen window. She called the police because she didn't know who this was. Cops came and that aide was fired. There are ways to get around doorbell cams.
If the person has a landline and many older people so, you could have the aide checking in with you from the landline. You could insist she check in every half hour from the landline too if she's there all day.
If the aide is through a homecare agency, it's their responsibility to keep her in line and properly doing the job. The boss or a supervisor is supposed to make regular visits to a clients' homes to make sure everything is running smoothly. If you're using an agency, go down there and talk to a supervisor. Tell them your concerns.
Ask the aide to write a few lines in a notebook on how the day went. Don't expect nurses' notes. If the aide tells you everything is fine and you have no reason to believe otherwise, believe it. If you think something isn't right, call it in right away. Tell the caregiver too.
A lot of this info I wanted as it helped document decline for Hospice but I also wanted to know they did what needed to be done.
Now I know they showed up each day as I did not leave before they arrived. So maybe changing the time your aides arrive to the time when you are leaving.
Like they do in assisted living facilities?
I'm usually home when the aide is here, and sometimes we work together as a team, but I had an aide a couple years ago who I knew was lazy and avoided doing work, and I found that when I was gone for a few hours at a time, she had nothing to hold her accountable, she didn't do anything at all. I could tell because when I got home, things weren't done, or she was just starting the usual tasks that should have been done hours earlier. I thought to myself, "what have you been doing all this time?"
For me, personally, I would use cameras focused on where your parent usually is, like in the living room and one in the bedroom (or kitchen). But, you would have to let the aide know that there are cameras and you may be checking in on them occasionally.
I like your idea of keeping a notebook. That is always a good way for family members and care providers to keep everyone informed, also good for tracking the person's health, diet, medications, activities, mood and bowel movements.
There can be a lot of "down time" in a job like this, and I think there are a lot of aides who really don't want to do anything but sit, watch TV, and babysit. This job draws people who don't want the structure and accountability of a 9 to 5, and they think this will be easier. Not saying there aren't some caring, hard working care providers, but I think this job appeals to people looking for a way to "coast".