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Autumn 2026·7 min read·Bruce Tollefson, Abloom Senior Living

When the home care you arranged is not working

How to change agencies in Minnesota, what notice you are owed, and how to avoid a week with nobody in the house.

Who this is written for

You arranged home care for your mother a couple of months ago and it is not going the way you hoped. Caregivers come late, or a different person comes every week, or the good one left and the new one does not know that your mother needs two people to stand up. Maybe nothing has gone badly wrong and you are still calling the office more than you ever expected to.

You have not missed an obvious step here. Home care gets arranged in one phone call and then delivered over months by people you never met during that call, so a poor match is ordinary, and it usually shows itself in the first six weeks. Minnesota gives you the right to change providers, and the statute sets out what each side owes the other.

You can leave whenever you want to

Families often think they signed a contract that locks them in for a year. Others worry the agency could stop coming with no warning at all.

You can change providers, including after services have already started. That is clause 9 of subdivision 1 of Minn. Stat. 144A.44, Minnesota's home care bill of rights, which gives a client the right to choose freely among available providers and to change after services have begun. The right is subject to any limits a health insurer, a long-term care insurer, or a public program places on which providers it will pay. If you are paying privately, there is usually no limit at all.

Clause 17 of the same subdivision entitles your mother to at least ten calendar days' advance notice before an agency stops a service. Assisted living residents get at least 30 days. Those ten days can be cut short in defined situations, including a significant change in her conduct, an unsafe work environment for staff, or an emergency or change in condition the agency cannot safely meet. If you get that call, ask for the written notice and the handover of records. The agency owes you both even when it ends services on short notice.

Most families hesitate to complain because they are afraid the help will stop. Clause 19 gives your mother the right to complain about her services free from retaliation, including the threat of termination of services. You can raise a problem with the office without putting her care at risk.

Work out whether it is the agency or the plan

Wanting to fire them is a fair first reaction, and sometimes it is the right one. Before you switch, spend an hour working out which problem you have, because a new agency solves some problems and leaves others in place.

Some problems are the agency: people who arrive when they feel like it, a schedule no one at the office is responsible for, calls that go unreturned for days, a caregiver who has clearly not been told what your mother's morning involves. Those are reasons to leave.

Other problems come from a plan that was built for a lighter situation than the one you have now. If your mother needed help with a shower in June and now needs someone there when she gets up and again at bedtime, the agency is failing at a job you have not actually asked it to do. The same thing happens when a need turns clinical. Tube feeding, a tracheostomy, oxygen, or two-person transfers call for a different level of staffing and nurse involvement than companionship and errands. Personal care or nursing walks through where that line falls, and nursing care at home describes what the clinical end looks like day to day.

The document that should answer this is the service plan. Under Minn. Stat. 144A.4791, subdivision 9, a licensed provider has to finalize a written service plan no later than 14 days after services first begin, and that plan has to describe the services to be provided, the fees for those services, and how often each service happens. Ask for the current one. If what it says bears little resemblance to what your mother needs in October, you have found something you can fix without changing companies.

Raise it once before you go

Raising it with the agency you have is often faster than switching. Ask who handles complaints there, put the two or three specific things in writing, and ask for a revised service plan with the hours you actually need. A reasonable provider will send a nurse back out to reassess. Our complaint process sets out the steps a licensed provider takes when a family raises a concern like this.

Give them a week or two to answer. If they are vague, or the same thing happens again after they promised it would not, you can start looking without feeling you failed to give them a chance. If you cannot tell whether their answer is good enough, ask one more specific question before you decide.

What the agency owes you on the way out

When a provider ends services while a client still needs care, subdivision 10 of Minn. Stat. 144A.4791 requires a written notice of termination. That notice has to include the effective date, the reason for termination, a list of known licensed home care providers in your mother's immediate geographic area, a statement that the provider will participate in a coordinated transfer of care, and the name and contact information of someone at the agency you can discuss it with. Check that the notice names a person you can call and says how her care will be handed over to the next agency. If it leaves either out, ask for one that does. For clients 18 or older it also has to explain how to reach the Office of Ombudsman for Long-Term Care, which is a free, independent state agency that investigates complaints and advocates for people receiving long-term care.

Whichever side ends it, clause 18 of the bill of rights entitles your mother to a coordinated transfer. That means the outgoing agency sends the new one its records, including her medication times and how her care is set up. Ask for the service plan, the current medication list, and any recent nursing notes in writing. Agencies handle these handoffs routinely, so there is no need to feel you are asking for a favor.

Line up the next one before you give notice

A gap in coverage is the part to watch, so keep the old agency going while the new one starts.

Talk to the next agency first and get a start date in hand. Questions to ask a home care provider is the list we give families, and in a switch, ask about whatever went wrong at the last agency: who builds the schedule, who covers a call-off at six in the morning, how many different caregivers your mother should expect to see in a month, and who you reach on a Sunday.

Check the new agency's record while you are at it. The Minnesota Department of Health publishes a provider lookup and a separate search for home care provider survey results, so you can see what state surveyors found at a company before you sign anything.

Then set the new start date a few days before the old agency's last day, and pay for a little overlap if you have to. Try to get one or two shared visits, so the new caregiver can watch how your mother transfers while the old one is still in the room.

Reporting abuse or neglect

Poor scheduling and a bad match are reasons to change companies. If your mother was neglected, hurt, or stolen from, or if medications were handled carelessly, that is more serious than a poor match, and it is an awful thing to even be weighing up. You do not have to be certain before you report it, because working out what happened is the investigator's job. You can report whether or not you are still a client. The Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Health Facility Complaints investigates licensed home care providers, and the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center takes reports of maltreatment of vulnerable adults, and you can file a report and change agencies at the same time.

Where to start this week

Ask for the current service plan and read it against what your mother needs now. Write down the two or three things that have to be different. Then make one call to the agency you have, and one to an agency you might move to. That is a reasonable week's work, and you can take longer than a week to decide.

If you want to talk it through with someone who does this in the East Metro, you can request in-home care and we will go over what your mother's week would need, what we would charge, and whether we are a good fit for it. Abloom Senior Living holds a comprehensive home care license from the Minnesota Department of Health and works in Woodbury and the suburbs around it, on private pay or long-term care insurance. If your funding runs through a Minnesota waiver or Medical Assistance, we will tell you straight away and point you to someone who can help, and if we are not the right fit for another reason we will say that too. We are happy to come to the house. Minnesota Aging Pathways, the state's free resource line for families, is at 800-333-2433 and will talk through your options with you.

This article is general information from a care provider in Woodbury, Minnesota. It is not legal, financial, or medical advice. Statutory requirements, insurance terms, and your parent's clinical needs vary, so confirm specifics with the provider, the insurer, or a licensed professional.

Frequently asked questions

Can I switch home care agencies in Minnesota whenever I want?

Yes. Minn. Stat. 144A.44, subdivision 1, clause 9, gives a home care client the right to choose freely among available providers and to change providers after services have begun. That right can be limited by what a health insurer, long-term care insurer, or public program will pay for, so check your policy if an insurer is involved. Families paying privately are generally free to move.

How much notice does a home care agency have to give before stopping services?

Under Minn. Stat. 144A.44, subdivision 1, clause 17, a home care client is entitled to at least ten calendar days' advance notice before a provider terminates a service, and an assisted living resident is entitled to at least 30 days. Shorter notice is allowed in defined situations, including a significant change in the client's conduct, an unsafe work environment for staff, or an emergency or change in condition the provider cannot safely meet.

Do I have to give my home care agency notice before leaving?

The ten-day requirement in the bill of rights is an obligation on the provider. Your service agreement may ask you for notice, so read it, though a family that needs to move sooner than that usually can. Tell the agency in writing and ask for a last date.

What happens to my parent's care plan and medication list when we switch?

Minn. Stat. 144A.44, subdivision 1, clause 18, entitles a client to a coordinated transfer when the provider of services changes, and the termination notice required by Minn. Stat. 144A.4791, subdivision 10, must state that the provider will participate in one. Ask for the service plan, the current medication list, and recent nursing notes in writing, and give copies to the new agency before the first visit.

Will complaining about our home care agency get my mother's services cut off?

Minn. Stat. 144A.44, subdivision 1, clause 19, gives a client the right to complain about services free from retaliation, including the threat of termination of services. If services were ended after a complaint, the Office of Ombudsman for Long-Term Care and the Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Health Facility Complaints both take that kind of concern.

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