Companies that provide in-home aides to supervise and assist often elderly people with cooking, cleaning, personal hygiene and other chores are drawing increasing scrutiny from their state regulator.
The Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) said Friday that it opened 75 cases in 2019 to review the activity of so-called “homemaker companion agencies,” up from 56 in 2018 and 39 in 2017.
DCP spokesperson Lora Rae Anderson said one likely driving factor is that the homecare industry is simply getting bigger to respond to a rising need from the state’s aging population, which naturally leads to more complaints.
There are currently more than 500 active companion homemaker agencies in Connecticut, according to DCP’s website. The agency only licenses the companies, not the workers themselves, so it doesn’t have employment data, but a trade association for the industry pegged the number of Connecticut workers at more than 28,000 last summer.
The biggest types of complaints DCP receives are related to theft, quality of services, and companies improperly advertising healthcare-related services, Anderson said.
There is a strict divide in state statute between the DCP-regulated homemaker companion agencies and home healthcare agencies, whose staff are permitted to dispense prescription medications and provide care for specific conditions such as dementia.
DCP encourages those shopping for in-home help to visit its website to verify licenses and learn more.
DCP’s consumer guide for homecare is here.
“When families are in a position where they have to hire a homemaker companion, they may have to act quickly out of necessity,” DCP Commissioner Michelle H. Seagull said in a statement. “That’s why it’s so important for us to do what we can to ensure that the public is educated about their rights and responsibilities when hiring homemaker companions. We encourage anyone who has questions, or complaints to contact our agency.”
