Kids help elderly parents most days and started supplementing with home care.

Thank you all for your excellent and helpful advice!

I agree with tornadojan above, have the caregiver Agency only have you as the main contact. I also use Home Instead and they know that only I can request changes in the schedule, and any changes need a couple of days notice. Thus no calling that day saying don't send the 3rd shift.

For my Dad, when we first started using the Agency, he got to meet quite a few caregivers, everyone was great, then eventually he narrowed down the ones he really liked. Earlier this year he moved to Independent Living thus only needed one shift, so he picked his favorite caregiver who have been with him for almost a year now :)

My mom periodically goes through this phase. She is in it now. Asked me tonight for the phone number of Home Instead so she could call them. Did not ask why she wants to. Probably to either try and cancel shifts or find out how much the home care is costing. She was crying and upset tonight when she asked how much they cost and I said "$10/hr" - a lie, of course. She went on about what's going to happen to her when the money runs out, etc. All I could say was "Don't worry." So just do whatever end runs around her you have to in order to keep the level care you think she needs. No worries - agencies like Home Instead are used to seniors trying to "go rogue" and won't cancel anything except through the main contact - you! Good luck.

I guess I should explain the part that got mom to quit doing this. I refused to take up the slack for the cancelled shift. I'd go visit on a day after a caregiver should have been there - they worked mon/wed/fri - mom would tell me I had to run her to the grocery store (a two hour event) or to the library ( she refused to go to the one in her neighborhood, she preferred the one that was a 20 minute drive) or where ever else she wanted to go. I'd ask "how come you didn't do this yesterday with Jane? (Errands were a large part of why we hired a care giver). Mom would say "oh, she never showed up - but don't call and make a fuss, I don't want to get her in trouble". This happened twice. After the second time I went home - after running errands - and called the agency only to be told mom had cancelled the shift. So the third time I visited and mom started with where I needed to take her, I just told her I didn't have time that day - and maybe she shouldn't have cancelled the caregiver the day before. That was the end of that.

Just have them replace the shift. My mom went through a phase where she'd call and cancel a shift - part of my annoyance with it was that she'd call so last minute that we'd get charged anyhow. Eventually I got the company to understand that unless it was me calling they were to fill every scheduled shift.