Find the best caregivers
to provide personal care
within your budget

Hiring a caregiver through Stay At Home Care VA is easy! It is Stay At Home Care VA’s mission to make interviewing and hiring a caregiver as easy as possible. We offer all of the services that are needed to hire a caregiver as your household employee. Stay At Home Care VA provides background checks, payroll services, tax documentation preparation, worker’s compensation insurance assistance, and backup and replacement of caregivers at no extra cost to you. 

1. Click the “Get Started” tab on Stay At Home Care VA’s main page and select the type of service you or your family member needs.
2. Complete the intake assessment form to provide information that the case manager will use to connect you with qualified caregivers that are registered in your area.
3. A case manager receives your case and will contact you to verify the information that you entered in the assessment form.
4. There is a one-time refundable prepayment that must be paid that is put on your balance and is deducted from the last invoice of service that the caregiver provides. This prepayment is refundable should you decide not to interview and hire a caregiver through Stay At Home Care VA. (please note there will be no unauthorized transactions with your card on file)
5. The case manager begins reaching out to registered caregivers in your area. This can take up to two days to hear a response back from local caregivers.
6. The case manager verifies the experience and qualifications of the caregiver.
7. The case manager notifies you and provides you with the caregiver’s contact info. The caregiver will also contact you to set up an interview.
8. The case manager will send you the caregiver’s link to view their profile. Included in their profile is years of experience, skills, qualifications, and references listed.
9. You perform a face to face interview with the caregiver before making a hiring decision. Your case manager performs a fresh background check once you have confirmed that you wish to hire a caregiver that you have interviewed.
10. There may be additional paperwork that needs to be completed by you for payroll and tax purposes. You will also create a User Dashboard so you can update your payment information and to log in and view weekly invoices.
11. Once your caregiver has started to provide care to you or your family member, you pay the weekly invoice online through Stay At Home Care VA and the caregiver receives their pay via direct deposit from Stay At Home Care VA.

We don’t have a minimum amount of hours. We give our clients the option to choose their hours and rate of pay. We will suggest recommendations on rates from previous experience of what a caregiver will accept but we do not pick and choose your hours of service or preferred rate of pay. We leave this up to the client. Typical recommendations are 2 or more hours a day.

A live in caregiver actually lives in your family member’s place of residence 24 hours a day. Most families who consider live in care hire 2 or more caregivers. However, we do have families who hire only one permanent caregiver and another caregiver who is available to cover the permanent caregiver for time off etc as needed only. A live in caregiver is convenient because the caregiver is always present and with your family member. However, everyone must sleep and have periods of rest throughout the day. A live in caregiver must have 8 hours of sleep at night and scheduled break periods each day per law. If your family member needs a caregiver that is alert and awake to provide care it might be best for your family to consider hiring an hourly caregiver.

We will assist you in preparing the working schedule for a live-in caregiver to comply with state and federal minimum wage, labor, and overtime regulations.

If your loved one requires a lot of assistance and requires around the clock care it might be beneficial to hire more than one caregiver to cover both day and night shifts. Example you could have one caregiver to come in for 12 hours during the day and another caregiver to come in for 12 hours at night to provide care. It also might be beneficial to reduce caregiver strain and burnout to hire more than one permanent caregiver to cover both shifts different days of the week. For example, Suzie could work 12 hour day shifts Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday while Sharon could work Thursday Friday and Saturday. Each family is different and has their own preference for the number of caregivers that they hire and schedule to provide care.

When hiring a caregiver you have two options. You can choose to hire an independent caregiver or an agency caregiver. An independent caregiver is a C.N.A., H.H.A., Homemaker, or companion in your community that provides services independently. If you interview and hire an independent caregiver the caregiver would be considered your household employee. The hourly rates for hiring an independent caregiver vary and are influenced by the caregiver’s qualifications, experience, geographical location, and the amount of care your family member needs. Hourly rates must be at least the minimum wage in your area. Some caregivers may be willing to negotiate the rate of pay while other caregivers are not negotiable. Your case manager can help you choose the most appropriate hourly rate based upon the average rate of caregivers in your area. Your case manager will also be able to negotiate with caregivers on your behalf based on your budget. This takes away the unneeded stress of pay negotiation to make hiring a caregiver an easier process. An agency caregiver is an employee of a non-medical home care or home health agency. If you interview an agency caregiver the caregiver would not be considered your employee. The agencies are bonded and insured and provide workers compensation insurance directly through the agency. Hiring an agency caregiver can be more expensive than hiring an individual caregiver. Most agencies are not negotiable on the hourly rate and require a certain amount of hours before the agency will accept the case.

As most of us know an employer will hire someone based on interviews, skills, and experience but yet never truly know what kind of employee they really are until they start working for you. And unfortunately, sometimes this can happen. Luckily our turnover rate is low and we always provide a backup provider for when this happens. If by some chance you are not happy with your caregiver, whether it be their work ethics, personality, etc. we will assist you in finding another qualified caregiver to better suit you/your loved one’s needs. This is also why we highly recommend a face to face interview with the caregiver/s before proceeding with the hiring process.

In some cases, we can and have provided a caregiver on a last minute notice. This solely depends on how quick a caregiver is to respond to the position. However, please keep in mind that the normal process of screening a caregiver usually takes around 2-3 days to get the most qualified applicants based on the clients’s needs. Please also keep in mind that we may not be able to run a background check on the caregiver as those can take 1-2 business days to return. It is the client’s preference to bypass a background check and proceed with hiring the caregiver if they are in need of someone urgent. If you wish to bypass a background check and proceed with hiring the caregiver please note Stay At Home Care VA is NOT responsible for ANY actions that may occur with the caregiver you hired. It is always highly recommended to perform a background check before hiring.