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Caregiver Scheduling

What an unfilled shift costs your agency

A call-off is never just one missed visit. Put in three numbers about your agency and see what open shifts cost you in a year: the revenue you don't bill, the hours your office spends finding coverage, overtime and pickup bonuses, and the clients and caregivers you lose along the way.

Last reviewed November 5, 2026

Your agency

Not sure? Count last week's call-offs, no-shows and visits nobody was scheduled for.

Open shifts cost you about

$35,767a year

That's $138 per open shift, across 260 open shifts a year. About 52 of them are never covered.

Revenue you never bill$6,656
52 missed visits × 4 hrs × $32
Office time finding coverage$5,460
260 shifts × 45 min × $28/hr
Overtime premium on covered shifts$1,790
52 shifts pushed a caregiver past 40 hrs
Pickup bonuses$3,120
208 covered shifts × $15 average
Clients lost after missed visits$11,981
1.6 clients × 20 hrs × $32 × 12 wks
Caregivers who quit over it$6,760
2.6 departures × $2,600 to replace
Direct cost: $17,026Client and caregiver risk: $18,741

In Caregiver Scheduling, when a caregiver can't make it, their visits turn into open shifts. Post one and caregivers cleared for the client get the offer on their phone and accept with one tap. Plans from $199 a month.

How open shifts get filled

How the number is built

Six costs, each one stated so you can argue with it.

Every open shift ends one of two ways: a caregiver covers it, or the visit is missed. The first four lines are direct costs you pay that week. The last two are the slower costs of clients and caregivers who leave because of it. Each assumption below is the default; change any of them in the calculator.

1

Revenue you never bill

When nobody covers a shift, the visit is missed and the hours are never billed. This is the only cost most agencies already count.

open shifts × unfilled % × shift hours × bill rate

Default: 20% of open shifts go unfilled.

2

Office time finding coverage

Every open shift costs scheduler time whether or not it fills: calls, texts, checking credentials, moving the calendar.

open shifts × minutes per shift ÷ 60 × scheduler cost per hour

Default: 45 minutes per open shift at $28/hr loaded.

3

Overtime premium

The caregiver who can take a last-minute shift is often the one already near 40 hours. You pay the half-time premium on those hours.

covered shifts × overtime % × shift hours × wage × 0.5

Default: 25% of covered shifts trigger overtime at the BLS median wage of $17.21/hr.

4

Pickup bonuses

Shift differentials and pickup bonuses fill shifts, but they are paid on top of the wage you already budgeted.

covered shifts × average bonus

Default: $15 per covered shift, blended across shifts that needed a bonus and shifts that did not.

5

Clients lost after missed visits

A missed visit is the most common reason a family changes agencies. A lost client is valued at their weekly hours until you replace them.

missed visits × churn % × client hours per week × bill rate × weeks to replace

Default: 3% of missed visits end the relationship; 20 hrs/week, 12 weeks to replace.

6

Caregivers who quit over it

Caregivers leave when their hours are unpredictable and the Sunday-night asks never stop. Each departure costs recruiting, onboarding and training.

open shifts × quit % × cost to replace a caregiver

Default: 1% of open shifts contribute to a departure at $2,600 each (Activated Insights).

Sources

Where the defaults come from

Wages come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Turnover and replacement cost come from Activated Insights (formerly Home Care Pulse), the home care industry's annual benchmarking survey. Fill rates, office time and churn-per-missed-visit are Logicly estimates from agencies we work with, and are the ones most worth replacing with your own.

What one call-off looks like

Maria calls off Sunday night. Here's where the money goes.

Three Monday visits, twelve hours of care. The scheduler spends her evening on the phone. Two visits get covered, one by a caregiver already at 38 hours. The third is missed, and the family starts asking about other agencies.

Nothing on that list shows up as a line item. It shows up as a thinner margin, a scheduler who quits in March and a client who leaves in April.

Call-offMaria R. · Sunday 8:42 PM · 3 visits Monday
Scheduler works the phonesThree shifts × 45 min at $28/hr$63
Priya covers the 8 AM, now at 42 hrs4 hrs of overtime premium at $17.21/hr$34
Two pickup bonuses$15 each to Priya and James$30
The 4 PM visit is missed4 hrs × $32 never billed$128
Ruth’s family starts shopping around3% chance of losing a 20-hr/wk client$230
One Sunday-night call-off$486

How Caregiver Scheduling handles this

When a caregiver can't make it, their visits turn into open shifts, listed next to the caregivers who are free, nearby and cleared for the client. Drag the visit onto one of them, or post the open shift: caregivers cleared for the client get the offer on their phone and accept with one tap. See scheduling.

Sources

Related guides

Scheduling

Caregiver No-Call No-Show Policy (Template)

A no-call no-show is a missed visit with no contact before start time. Policy template, the first-hour response, when you can terminate, and what you must still pay.

Workforce

The Real Cost of Caregiver Turnover

What replacing a caregiver costs, line by line with labeled assumptions, why 75% turnover means 19 hires a year for a 25-caregiver agency, and what reduces it.

These free tools are made by the team behind Caregiver Scheduling, caregiver scheduling software for home care agencies.

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