verify your care!

A friend of mine, also in this industry, sent me a link last night that I have not been able to stop thinking about. Stephanie Mobley, of King of Prussia, owned ComfortZone Home Health Care in East Norriton — a Medicaid-approved home health agency operating right here in Montgomery County. According to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office, she and nineteen co-conspirators, several of them relatives, spent three years billing Medicaid for personal care that was never provided: assigning caregivers who did not exist, arranging kickbacks, and recruiting new participants into the scheme. Mobley was sentenced to 17 months to 10 years, with $1.76 million in restitution. Her daughter and the office manager were sentenced separately.

We are shocked, and honestly disgusted, by how often good people get taken advantage of at the exact moment they are most vulnerable — whether that is the family caregiving for someone they love, or the person receiving care themselves. Both are trusting someone with the most fragile parts of their life. Both deserve better than what happened here.

Here is what's strange: "How do we know who to trust?" almost never comes up at the start. It is not the question families lead with. It is the question that surfaces afterward — after something has already gone wrong — because there is a baseline assumption walking in the door that anyone in this field is reputable. The ComfortZone case is a reminder that assumption is not automatically true, and that checking it costs almost nothing.

You are considering letting someone into your home, or your mother's home, at the most vulnerable season of her life. You should not have to take anyone's word for anything — including mine.

In my current work, I help determine the level of care a person actually needs — not whether their care gets funded. That is a different piece of the puzzle. But sitting on that side of the process taught me something most families never hear: you can verify any home care or home health provider in Pennsylvania yourself. Tonight. For free. Nobody tells families this, so almost nobody does it.

Here is exactly how. These five checks apply whether you are evaluating a licensed agency, a registry, or someone you are hiring directly — the specific rules change state to state and situation to situation, but the questions do not.

The short version:

1. Ask for the license number — then look it up yourself.

2. Read the state's inspection results.

3. Ask how caregivers are screened.

4. Get the Consumer Notice in writing before care starts.

5. Pay attention to how your questions are received.

1. Ask for the license number — then look it up yourself

In Pennsylvania, no one may legally operate a non-medical home care agency or home care registry without a license from the Department of Health under 28 Pa. Code Chapter 611. Not "certified," not "registered with the county" — licensed, by the state, with an inspection before the license is issued.

One thing worth knowing before you ask: home care and home health are not the same license. Home health agencies provide skilled, medically-directed services — nursing, therapy, home health aide services — under a physician's plan of care. Home care agencies and registries provide non-medical support: companionship, personal care, homemaking. ComfortZone was licensed as a home health agency. The type of license doesn't excuse what happened, but knowing which one you're dealing with is part of verifying it properly.

Any legitimate provider should hand over its license number the moment you ask — without hesitation, including us. If a provider hesitates, that hesitation is the answer.

You can check any license through the Department of Health's facility search at sais.health.pa.gov. Search by the agency's name or county. The listing will tell you exactly what it's licensed as — home health, home care agency, home care registry, or some combination — which matters more than most families realize going in.

2. Read the inspection results

This is the step almost nobody knows exists. The Department of Health surveys licensed providers roughly every twelve months — more often if there are complaints — and the results are public, in the same search tool. You can see whether a provider was found out of compliance and what it did about it.

Five minutes of reading tells you more than any brochure.

3. Ask how caregivers are screened

Chapter 611 sets a legal floor for every licensed home care agency and registry in the state. Direct care workers must have a criminal history check — with an FBI check in certain cases — along with tuberculosis screening, and their competency must be verified and documented before they are assigned to you.

So do not ask, "Do you background-check your caregivers?" Every licensed agency has to. Ask instead: "Walk me through how you screen and evaluate a caregiver before they ever reach my door." The quality of the answer is the real information.

4. Get the Consumer Notice — in writing, before care starts

The law requires every home care agency and registry to give you written information before services begin, including the Department's complaint hotline (1-866-826-3644) and a disclosure of something families rarely think to ask: whether the caregiver in your home is an employee of the agency or an independent contractor — and who is responsible for taxes, insurance, and supervision in each case.

Neither model is wrong. Gilgal is licensed as both: our Gilgal Care Team caregivers are our employees, and our Family-Led Care option is a registry model where you hire an independent caregiver directly. What is wrong is a provider that will not put the distinction in writing. You are entitled to it.

5. Pay attention to how your questions are received

This last one is not in any regulation, but it is the one I trust most. Ask your questions and watch what happens. A provider that welcomes scrutiny — that hands over its license number before you ask twice — is showing you how it intends to treat you after the paperwork is signed. One that gets vague, rushed, or offended is showing you the same thing.

One honest caveat: a license is a floor, not a ceiling. It means a provider met the state's minimum standards and passed inspection. It does not measure kindness, reliability, or whether a caregiver will notice that your dad seems different this week. Verify the floor — then judge the ceiling in person.

The ComfortZone case did not happen because Pennsylvania lacks rules. It happened over three years, involving twenty people, in a company that was itself a licensed, approved Medicaid provider. The license was never the problem. What was missing was families checking behind it — and a system that made that hard enough that almost nobody did.

That is the only thing this post is trying to fix.

If the next question on your mind is what all of this costs and how families actually pay for it, that answer lives here: Paying for Home Care in Pennsylvania.

And if you would rather just talk it through, the introductory call is free and there is no obligation attached to it. Bring your hardest questions — the ones above are a good start. Schedule a call here.