Get the Task List in Writing Before You Sign: What the Aide Will Do, What Stays With the Family

Before any agreement, get the household task list in writing and mark every line as the agency's, the family's, or unclear.

Verification questions · November 10, 2026

This page is for a family deciding whether to sign with an agency for non-medical help at home. Most disagreements that start after the first week trace back to one task that nobody wrote down. The check below is a records habit: ask for the task list, walk it through the house, and mark each line as the agency's, the family's, or unclear.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Ask for the list in writing

Ask the agency to put the household tasks it will perform on each visit into a written list. Common lines include tidying the rooms the aide uses, laundry, meal preparation from food the family supplies, companionship, and errands on a written list. Ask whether the list covers only the person receiving care or the whole home. Ask how a task outside the list gets added, whether by phone, by message, or only by a signed change.

Mark each line in the house

Walk the rooms with the list in hand. For every line, write agency, family, or unclear. An unclear mark is not a yes. It is a question to send back before anything is signed. Mail, bills, keys, and household supplies are the lines families most often assume someone else is handling, so check those first.

Questions to put to the agency

Who writes the task list, and who approves a change to it?
What happens when a listed task cannot be finished in the time booked?
Which lines does the agency leave with the family, and does the agreement say so?
Where does the visit record live once service starts, and who can read it?

What a public file cannot tell you

Editorial note: a registry or public file will not show the tasks an agency offers. Only the agency's own paperwork will. That is why this check starts at the kitchen table and not at a lookup. If you are not yet sure which record applies to the agency, the guide on home health versus non-medical home care explains which file to check: Home health versus non-medical home care: which record to check.

Checked the records? Now talk to a person.

Tell us what you found and what you still need to know. New Plan Care Solutions provides non-medical support at home; it is not a Medicare-certified home health agency, and it will say plainly what it can and cannot do.

New Plan Care Solutions is independently owned and operated in St. Louis by Stacie Postol. Non-medical in-home support for St. Louis and St. Charles counties: personal care and daily routines, companionship, homemaking, respite for family caregivers, and day-to-day help while recovering at home. Short-term, overnight, 24-hour and live-in care with no long-term contract. Fully insured, with background-checked caregivers screened through the Family Care Safety Registry. Care visits start at $136 (a four-hour visit at $34 an hour). Every family starts with a complimentary in-home care consultation and up to 2 hours of care observation: no cost, no obligation.

The guides on this site are educational, not medical advice.