Personalized Home Care Agency

Review: Point of service contract was funded for 90 hours a quarter for the last two years.

Up until Q2 of this year [redacted] was receiving 72 hours per quarter. The point of service had been for 90 hours per quarter as well as his Individual Program Plan which also indicated 90 hours per quarter and was submitted to this company. [redacted] never received the prefunded 72+ hours stolen from him, Owner ([redacted]) refused to cover hours. Owner ([redacted]) complained back to me that [redacted] hours were low and that he needed a minimum of 4 hours to maintain with this agency even though they advertise no minimum number of hours. I had to conform to a 3.5 hour health care service or [redacted] would be dropped. Formal complaint went out via email on 6/18/2012. Since then we have been limited Personalized Home Care Services to only Monday and Tuesday from 3:15PM to 6:45PM, they have no one available any other day period. They claim they are hiring more qualified care providers but never provide the new hires for services. Saturday request on occassion but very difficult to obtain.

Note: If Mondays and Tuesdays are not booked they won't send anyone or won't hire any one to cover any other days for needed services so prepaid hours would be lost.Desired Settlement: 1.The 72 plus hours they got paid for and didn't service their client to provide those hours they got paid for. This is unethical and maybe even illegal business practice.

2. To hire enough staff to cover the needs of their client they agreed to provide the health care service to. Their advertisement states "In order to deliver the best service, we provide a free in-home assessment so that we can better understand your home care needs. By meeting with the care recipient and their family we can make care recommendations from our available services. A customized care plan is created before we first administer care and is continuously reviewed to ensure we are meeting your needs." To date we have not received this advertised service that meets our needs but rather their business needs.

This is unethical and maybe even additional illegal business practice.

3. To honor the minimum number of hours as per their advertisement - as this is false advertising. This is unethical and maybe even an additional illegal business practice.

Business

Response:

Personalized Home Care Agency is being contracted by Alta California Regional Center in Sacramento to provide respite services to developmentally disabled adults 18 years and older. Our contract with our ALTA program states that we should have a minimum of 4 hours every visit. Our agency already give certain exception to Mr. [redacted] an ALTA client ,to adjust our minimum service per visit to 3.5 hours so to fit with his needs and accommodate certain demands like irregular schedules, no enough further notice and have certain preferred caregivers. We advertised no minimum hours for our private pay clients only. Regional centers clients has certain policy's and fixed reimbursement rates different to private pay clients thus we cannot afford to provide services to their clients under 4 hours. We are only paid by ALTA on the number of hours served. Although Mr [redacted] has been authorized by ALTA for 90 hours, we sometimes can only serve based on his schedules , preferred caregiver availability etc. We only have few caregivers that can match Mr. [redacted]'s personality. Our agency serve both elderly and developmentally disabled. We only have 2 cases with AlTA, thus we cannot maintain as many caregivers with developmentally disabled experience. We been serving Mr. [redacted] since 2011 and always try to satisfy their demands. Our goal is to always satisfy our clients without sacrificing the quality of service .

Consumer

Response:

Review: [redacted]

I am rejecting this response because:

My goal in this complaint is to obtain the following resolution:

obtain the following available time frame as discussed during the orientation (really needed)

Monday through Friday from 3:15 PM to 6:15 PM ( 3 hours); not to exceed the 90 hours per quarter

Some accasional Saturday's; not to exceed the 90 hours per quarter

above need is in compliance with the website advertising that states no minimum hours required

obtain the difference in all hours not provided. Disabled consumer was authorized for 90 hours per quarter which started about two years ago, yet care provided agency only provided 72 hours per quarter for time frame indicated in complaint.

Accounting, administrative, and/or management errors on behalf of the care providing agency should not be negatively impacted to the disabled consumer.

The descrepancy was addressed but the only correction made by Personalized Home Care was to start providing the 90 hours per quarter. Consumer requesting to obtain respite hours that were approved prior to the descrepancy correction.

obtain male workers to support care for disabled adult male (preferred request, and would allow disabled consumer to be more comfortable with care support for showering)

Please contact me if clarification is required.

Regards,

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Sincerely,