Autumn 2026·7 min read·Abloom Senior Living

How to check a home care agency's license in Minnesota

The license, the inspection findings, and the background study rules are all public. Looking them up takes about ten minutes.

Why this comes up

You have two or three agency names written down. They came from a discharge planner, a neighbor, and a web search, and every one of their websites says roughly the same warm things. You want to know which of them is real, and you do not want to be the person who picked wrong for your mother.

There is no consumer rating site for this. Minnesota keeps the records that would answer part of your question, and it keeps them in three different places, none of which is linked from the agencies' own pages. If you have been looking for a while and not finding much, the records really are scattered, and nobody hands a family the list.

What a Minnesota home care license is

Your first instinct is probably to ask whether an agency is licensed at all. Confirm that, then ask which of the two levels the agency holds. That second answer tells you more about what it can actually do.

Home care in Minnesota is licensed by the Minnesota Department of Health under chapter 144A of state law. Under Minn. Stat. 144A.471, a basic home care license covers assistive tasks: help with dressing, feeding, hygiene, grooming, toileting, and bathing, standby assistance, "providing verbal or visual reminders to the client to take regularly scheduled medication," reminders for treatments and exercises, modified diets, and household services such as laundry and meal preparation when they come with at least one personal care task.

Read the comprehensive list slowly. Most of what a family is arranging appears on it. A comprehensive license covers everything above and then the clinical work. The same statute lists services of a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, advanced practice registered nurse, physician assistant, or physical therapist, "tasks delegated to unlicensed personnel by a registered nurse," medication management, "hands-on assistance with transfers and mobility," treatments and therapies, help with eating for someone with swallowing difficulty or a feeding tube, and other complex or specialty care.

Compare that list against what your own mother needs. If she needs a two-person transfer out of bed, or somebody to actually hand her the pills rather than remind her about them, a basic license does not reach that far and the agency needs the comprehensive one. Our page on personal care or nursing care sorts out which side of that line a given task falls on. Settle it in the first phone call, before anyone comes out to the house.

A license is a statement of what a provider is permitted to do. It says nothing about whether the caregiver arrives at seven when you were told seven, or what happens the week she has the flu. The comprehensive license is also the common one among agencies serving Washington County, so it usually will not be the thing that separates two names on your list.

Looking up the agency

The Minnesota Department of Health keeps a public database of licensed providers. Its page on the home care and assisted living provider database says you can search "by type, county, city or name." What you will see on a listing is the address, a phone number, who the administrator is, and where the license stands. Federal certification is listed too. The department says the data is updated daily.

Search by county or city rather than by name the first time, because the legal name on a license often is not the name printed on the car door, and a name search will come back empty while the agency is perfectly legitimate. When you find the listing, look at the license status line. Active is what you want to see. Anything else is worth asking the agency about directly.

If an agency is not in that database at all and is offering hands-on personal care in a client's home, that is worth asking about directly. There are honest explanations, including a pending application or a legal name you have not found yet. Ask, and see whether the answer is easy to give.

Reading inspection findings

Licensed providers get surveyed. Minn. Stat. 144A.474 directs the commissioner to survey home care providers "on a frequency of at least once every three years," and says the frequency "may be based on the license level, the provider's compliance history, the number of clients served, or other factors."

Findings from those surveys, along with complaint investigations, are published. The department's page on viewing complaint and survey findings describes what is there as "complaints, licensing violations, or disciplinary actions for facilities, providers or credentialed individuals."

Correction orders are ordinary. A provider that has been surveyed several times and has a few paperwork citations is normal, and an agency with nothing at all on file may simply be young. Look for the same problem showing up across two or three visits, for findings about client care, and for anything recent that has not been resolved. Surveyors write in blunt language, so a small finding can read worse than it was. If something in a report worries you, call the agency and ask them to explain it. Listen to how they answer.

Background studies

Families almost always ask whether the agency runs background checks. It is a reasonable thing to ask. Minnesota law already requires background studies, though, so every agency will say yes and the answer separates nobody.

Minn. Stat. 144A.476 requires that before the commissioner issues a temporary license, issues a license after a change in ownership, or renews a license, "an owner or managerial official is required to complete a background study under section 144.057." The same section says that "employees, contractors, and volunteers of a home care provider are subject to the background study required by section 144.057, and may be disqualified under chapter 245C."

So ask something the law does not already answer. Ask how long the caregiver assigned to your mother has worked there, who covers when she is out, and whether the same person comes every week or the shift gets filled from whoever is free. None of that is in the public records.

The paperwork that arrives before care starts

State law puts several documents in your hands before the first visit, and they are useful for comparing agencies because they have to name the services, the fees, and the frequency in writing.

Under Minn. Stat. 144A.4791, a provider must give the client the home care bill of rights with complaint contact information, and a written statement identifying its license type and the services it is authorized to provide, including the services it cannot provide under that license. A written service plan follows within fourteen days, and it must contain "a description of the home care services to be provided, the fees for services, and the frequency of each service." Both sides sign it. If the provider later ends services, the termination notice has to give the effective date, the reason, a list of other providers, and contact information for talking it through.

Read the fees line and the frequency line together. Two agencies that sounded the same on the phone often differ once the fees and the frequency are written down. And if you get the paperwork and want a week to sit with it, take the week. Very little about this has to be settled the day it lands on your kitchen table.

If something goes wrong after care starts

You will most likely never need this part, and it is easier to read now than in the middle of a bad week. Concerns about a licensed provider go to the Office of Health Facility Complaints at the Minnesota Department of Health, which looks at rights violations, inadequate care, licensing standard violations, and problems with how services were ended. Suspected maltreatment of a vulnerable adult goes to the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center instead, and that is the faster route when the worry is immediate.

Most families never call either one. It is easier to have them before the first visit than to look them up later.

Where the records stop

The public record can tell you what an agency is allowed to do and what inspectors have found. Everything else you learn by asking: who is the registered nurse responsible for your mother's plan, which tasks she delegates to the aide, and what the agency does when the plan stops working. Our page on nursing care at home covers where that line sits, and the questions to ask a home care provider list goes further into the interview itself.

If your mother's week includes a tracheostomy without a ventilator, a G, J, or GJ feeding tube, BiPAP, CPAP, or oxygen, or transfers that take two people, those are cases Abloom Senior Living handles in a client's own home, along with dementia care. We work in Woodbury and the surrounding East Metro, and care at home is paid for privately or through a long-term care insurance policy. If waiver funding is what your family needs, we will tell you on the first call and give you the name of someone who bills it. Abloom Senior Living also runs a five-resident home in Woodbury. If care at home stops working later on, that house is an option you will already know about. If we are not the right fit for your family, we will say so and give you another name.

A reasonable next step

If you want to talk through what your mother's week actually requires and whether care at home covers it, you can ask us to come out to the house, or you are welcome to come see the Woodbury home. Our getting started page walks through what happens after that. No rush, and no obligation to decide anything while we are standing in your living room.

This article is general information from a care provider. It is not legal, financial, or medical advice. For guidance about your family's situation, talk with the professionals involved in your parent's care.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find out if a home care agency in Minnesota is licensed?

Search the Minnesota Department of Health's home care and assisted living provider database by county, city, or name. The listing shows the provider's address, administrator, and state licensure status, and the department says the data is updated daily. Search by county first, since an agency's legal name often differs from the name it advertises under.

What is the difference between a basic and a comprehensive home care license?

Under Minn. Stat. 144A.471, a basic license covers assistive tasks such as bathing, dressing, toileting, meal preparation, and verbal or visual medication reminders. A comprehensive license adds nursing services, tasks a registered nurse delegates to unlicensed staff, medication management, hands-on transfer and mobility help, and help with eating for someone with a feeding tube or swallowing difficulty.

Can I see inspection results for a home care agency?

Yes. The Minnesota Department of Health publishes complaints, licensing violations, and disciplinary actions for licensed providers. State law requires that home care providers be surveyed at least once every three years, and more often depending on license level, compliance history, and other factors the department weighs.

Does a comprehensive license mean an agency is better?

It means the agency is permitted to provide clinical services a basic license does not cover, which matters if your parent needs nursing care, medication administration, or hands-on transfers. It is also widely held among agencies in the East Metro, so it rarely distinguishes one provider from another. Continuity of caregivers, registered nurse oversight, and how the agency handles a missed shift will tell you more.

What should the agency give me in writing before care starts?

The home care bill of rights with complaint contact information, a written statement of the provider's license type and the services it is and is not authorized to provide, and a signed service plan within fourteen days that lists the services, the fees, and how often each service happens.

Sources

All field notes Arrange a visit