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I don't see how an agency can keep you from changing agencies.
I honestly don’t have an answer to how to handle this. There are some old legal cases about freedoms related to employment, but thinking them through would be a bit like a debating topic for law students. Perhaps the best way to cover the trail is to sack the agency, move to the caregivers new agency, but use a different carer for a while. If you swap back a bit later to the caregiver you particularly like, the contract breach isn’t so blatant. Because the original agency would need to sue, just making it difficult for them may be enough.
Law can be very complex. To make matters worse you might get three different answers from three different attorneys. If you have concern I believe the best bet is to consult with an attorney who handles elder care contracts. Some will give you a free consultation.
If you switch agencies, you will be employing an agency, not a person. You pay the agency, you are not employing a specific caregiver regardless of the fact it happens to be the same one. Why don't you called the new agency and ask their advice?
Your story would be something like “I heard some bad things about agency 1, and decided to try agency 2. After a couple of months I was sent the same caregiver we had had before. I was so surprised!”. I think it would be very unlikely that agency 1 find out if it didn’t happen straight away. If they did, and demanded payment, I doubt if they would risk starting a case when you refused to pay.
I’d suggest that you don’t cook it up with caregiver, who will still know people in agency 1 and might tell them the plan. Just do it! I agree that the point of the clause is probably to stop transferring to private pay, and making a fuss about a more tricky situation would not be worth risking the legal costs, particularly with an unsympathetic court. Of course this is not strictly “legal advice”!