I have found the caregivers at FRHC to be excellent workers, but the policies made by FRHC's top…read moremanagement are substantially problematic and disadvantageous to myself and probably to other clients. Here is what I experience. My caregiver has many home responsibilities and has not been available to work about one third of the days for which I am scheduled for her help. FRHC notifies me of the cancellation of her shift anywhere from an hour to five minutes before the shift begins. Usually, but not always, FRHC can provide me with a substitute worker. Sometimes there is nobody available. When there is a substitute available, that worker arrives well after the customary hours of the shift. That means, for example, that if the shift begins at 8 am and if the substitute worker (notified at the last minute or unavailable for the first hour of the shift) arrives that day, her arrival would rarely be before 9 or 9:30 am or even later. So, for example, if I have previously made a 9 am medical appointment for that day, I will not have transportation to that appointment, will have to cancel the appointment on very short or no notice, and may be subject to the medical appointment's cancellation fee.
When I called FRHC to find out why my otherwise excellent worker cancelled so often, I was told that FRHC's policy is to allow their workers to cancel at will, even at the last moment, and that FRHC has no penalty for that, considers it perfectly OK, and even expects it. You need to expect abrupt cancellations of scheduled shifts which, for some disabled clients, may be far more than a mere inconvenience.
FRHC will then attempt to reschedule these missed hours for another day of the same week, which may or may not fit your schedule or that of your usual caretaker. Again, I emphasize that I have found FRHC's workers to be, as a group, excellent and their local administrators to be hard working and pleasant. It is this company's policies that are the problem I experience.
I would like to emphasize that the caregivers, in my experience, are almost always lovely and good at their job. The local administrators have always been polite and caring to me. FRHC's policy of not hiring caregivers on a full time basis and not requiring consistent attendance is a problem, sometimes a BIG problem, for some clients. It is a fact of which prospective clients should be aware.