Most of an agreement covers the schedule, the hours, and the notice rules. A short clause, often under a heading about property or responsibility, says what happens when something in the house breaks or goes missing. Read that clause before the first visit, not after the first loss. Keep the agreement itself on your sheet as FILE. Keep your reading of it as EDITORIAL, and say which is which.

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Find the clause

Search the agreement for the words damage, breakage, loss, property, valuables, personal items, and reporting. A clause may use only one of those words. If nothing in the agreement touches property at all, write that down as a finding and put the question to the agency in writing before the first visit.

Read the four parts

A breakage or lost-item clause usually answers four questions. Write each answer beside the text it comes from.

  • What counts as property. Does it cover the family's furniture and personal items, the aide's own tools, or only some of these?
  • How a loss gets reported. Who writes the report, who receives it, and whether a report must be written at all.
  • How the agency looks into it. Whether it asks the aide, checks the visit log, and tells the family what it found.
  • What the family can be asked to do. Whether the agreement asks for any payment, and whether that is capped in the text or left open.

Mark each line as file or editorial

Before you discuss the clause with anyone, separate what the paper says from what you think it means. Copy the paper in short phrases, put a FILE label beside each one, and keep your own notes in a separate column marked EDITORIAL. When the agency later describes the clause differently, the sheet shows which version matches the text.

Questions to put in writing

  • Does the clause cover the aide's own tools and bags, or only the home?
  • Must a missing item be reported in writing on the day it is noticed?
  • Who decides whether a loss is the aide's responsibility, and how is that decided?
  • Can the family ask that a replacement aide wait until a report is closed?
  • Does the agency keep an incident record, and can the family see the entry about its own home?
  • If the agreement is silent, what does the agency do, and will it confirm that in writing?

Do not treat a verbal promise as the clause

A staff member may say the agency will take care of a broken item. That sentence is not the clause. The clause is what the signed agreement says. If the family wants a reading of what the words mean in a dispute, a lawyer of the family's own choosing can give that reading. This guide does not.

Confirm the category first

Some agencies are filed under a different category than the one the family expects, and that can change which rules and which papers apply. Before you read the clause, confirm the category, using the difference explained in home health and home care in Missouri are two different categories. A star rating or a familiar name does not tell you which paper you have been given.