Home Care Strategy Lab

Live at HCAOA—20 minute conversation with Chaim Gewirtzman, CEO @ NCE Home Care Highlights:  00:00 Introduction to His Home Care Journey 03:42 Relating to Caregivers: His Nursing Perspective 06:42 Innovative Recruitment Strategies 09:35 The Importance of Online Presence 12:35 Social Media Investment and Strategy 15:38 Employee Referral Programs with Personal Touch 18:49 Valuing Caregivers Goes Bey...

Live from HCAOA—45 minute conversation with Connor Sweeney, Co-Founder at CallBaba. Com Highlights:  His grandma’s stroke pulled him into caregiving with his mom and grandfather. He cloned her voice to create AI speech-therapy agents tailored to her needs. Fascinating stat: dementia rates are higher among people who are deaf. Baba is an AI companion for questions, prayer, conversation, emotional s...

Live from HCAOA—15 minute conversation with Jennifer Axelrod, with A Place at Home Highlights: Jennifer brings 3 years in home care and 15 years in franchising. She began as a franchise business coach at A Place at Home and now leads partnerships and national accounts. Home care is personal—her grandmother’s difficult Alzheimer’s journey shaped her “why.” Build a culture of recognition from day on...

#36 Too many home care leaders struggle to offer wages and benefits that truly support and retain their care staff. In this episode, Gabby Hoing, CEO of Kore Cares in South Dakota, breaks down her detailed wage, bonus, and benefits programs and explains why they work. She also shares how her office team conducts quarterly check-ins with every caregiver to gather feedback, understand their needs, a...

Live from HCAOA—20 minute conversation with Matt Ericksen, VP of Sales at Griswold Home Care Corporate Office in Blue Bell, PA.  Highlights : He’s been in home care for 13, at Griswold for 5 years Griswold is 40 years in, founded by Jean Griswold, 230 locations in 32 states He got a history degree, but his wife urged him into health care scheduling, the rest is history Home care has been his inter...

LIVE from HCAOA—45 minute conversation with Janice Rehkopf, Director of Client Services at Comfort Keepers in Traverse City, MI. Highlights: People are talking about aging sooner Every family, every client, every caregiver has a unique set of needs People want solutions-based care, not just more hours Many seniors don’t need a caregiver right away, some times technology or a supplemental solution...

LIVE from HCAOA—15 minute conversation with Carl Bossung, Co-Founder of Senior1Care in Indiana. Highlights: 20 year family owned business, 6 offices, 600 employees Former leader in a CPA firm, grew it from 20 people to 6,000 Got into home care for care for his mom and anticipating the demand of the baby boomer generation The bought a CNA school, because whoever gets the best employees in a service...

#35 Technology is ending the era of dual-entry between phone calls and scheduling platforms in home care. Spencer joined the family-owned home care business three years ago and identified a handful of manual processes that needed attention immediately. Fast forward, he’s built a tool called SmartAutomations. Care that connects the phone system to your scheduling software and automates the document...

#34 People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Jane Francis, EVP of Business Development at Senior1Care in Indiana, is newer to home care, but she brings deep experience in nursing, sales, leadership development, and scaling businesses. She took over a newly acquired, underperforming Medicaid office and transformed it into a 75% private pay operation, achieving 100% yea...

#33 Becky Reel is the former CEO of North America’s #1 home care agency and in this episode we unpack six of the most common growth challenges home care owners face—and how to overcome them. We talk through the pushing through revenue plateaus, the caregiver exodus, the burned-out founder, the corporate competition crisis, the success trap of growing too fast, and the work-life collision that happ...

#32 Eric Reinarman, VP of Government Relations at HCAOA, covers the most pressing policies being talked about on Capitol Hill. From immigration reform and workforce shortages to affordability of care and the controversial 80/20 Medicaid rule, he breaks down what’s happening in Washington and how it could reshape the industry. We also talk about the power of advocacy, why storytelling moves policy...

#31 Running a home care agency can feel like running a marathon—at a 7-minute mile pace, on a treadmill, underwater. Most owners are stuck because they fall into one of two traps: the “set it and forget it” manager who assumes vision is enough, or the “I’ll just do it myself” manager who can’t let go of control. Emily Isbell, CEO of 24/7 Solutions breaks down why both fail and what it takes to bui...

#30 Being an entrepreneur is full of unknowns and leadership can be lonely, challenging, and push you to your limits. The CEOs of AxisCare, Nevvon, and Caribou—three leading home care tech companies—share how they started their businesses, the frameworks they use to make tough decisions, the skills they’ve had to master, and how they’ve built moats around themselves in a competitive market. They a...

#29 Jen Kulig, Director of Market Operations at Tribute Home Care, shares how a $32M agency hires and retains only the top 1% of caregiver applicants. She walks through their 7–10 day hiring process, driven by situational interviews that surface grit, empathy, and motivation, and explains why referrals make up 40% of new hires. Jen also highlights the Caregiver Excellence Department’s 90-day suppo...

#28 After two decades in the home care industry, Bob Roth found himself at a crossroads. Bob shares why he had to completely reimagine Cypress Home Care, from rebuilding operations post-Honor Care Network to transforming caregiver recruitment using machine learning and automation. He shares his candid take on today’s workforce challenges, the generational shifts shaping senior care, and why “home...

#27 If you’re waiting hours (or worse, days) to follow up with caregiver applicants, you’re already losing the best talent. Louie Frank of Activated Insights breaks down why “24 minutes is the new 24 hours” when it comes to caregiver recruiting—and how agencies can fix mid-funnel drop-off before it costs them hires. You’ll learn how to audit your own application process, speed up first contact, an...

#26 AI is transforming how home care agencies operate. Matt Ericksen, VP of Sales and Operations at Griswold, breaks down the exact AI tools, workflows, and formulas he’s using to reclaim hours, improve recruiting, and scale franchise operations. You’ll hear how he built a job ad grader that boosts hiring results, layered Microsoft Copilot across internal systems to save 17 hours a week, and creat...

#25 What if you could replace dozens of scattered hourly shifts with one scalable model inside an independent living community? In this episode, Rob Rister of HomeWell Care Services shares how he built his “Support On Site” program—turning caregiver shortages into retention wins, driving 45% margins, and embedding his agency in 10 communities across three states. He breaks down the numbers, the op...

#24 Wayne Morgan opens up about the persistence, mistakes, and lessons that finally got him in the door at Spaulding, the nation’s #2 rehab hospital. Alongside Breanne Muchemore, who led Spaulding’s care management team, they share what actually matters to hospital partners and why most agencies never make the cut. This is an inside look at the conversations, questions, and trust-building that tur...

#23 An unheard of home care success story—Reggie Mackey and his team have built Live Well Home Care to a projected $25M in annual revenue in just two and a half years. The company is 98% VA funded, works mostly in rural markets across 30 states, and credits its growth to one thing: customer service—taking care of people who take care of people. Reggie shares how they approach recruiting in hard-to...

#22 Clint Nobles has worked closely with upwards of thousands of home care leaders and in this episode we talk about leadership behaviors—particularly the bad ones. He shares things that he’s seen and experienced firsthand that he advises home care leaders to actually stop doing. We tackle triage, trust, productivity, delegation, and other unique-to-home-care leadership lessons. He also shares his...

#21 Smart home technology is reshaping how aging adults live—and how home care agencies serve them. In this episode with Jim Conti, Shea Gregg, and David Eby, we explore the most adopted tools, emerging trends, and what’s becoming standard in aging-in-place environments. We dive into the ethical and practical challenges agencies face as technology changes communication, care responsibilities, and...

#20 Not enough home care leaders are thinking about or talking about insurance. Why? They think it’s a commodity, they haven’t had a claim filed against them, or they don’t know what questions to be asking. Gavin Studner, Client Advisor at Acrisure dives into changes in workers compensation, increased rates for general and professional liability, and why carriers are limiting their appetite for ho...

#19 Jessica Schultz , Director of Franchise People Strategy at Right at Home, and Paul Blom , a 24-year franchise owner, share what they’ve learned about caregiver recruitment and retention. Jessica unpacks the “Top 10 Project,” a system-wide deep dive into what the best-performing offices are doing differently. Paul shares the specific tactics that have helped his agency maintain exceptional rete...

#18 Debbie Miller, CEO of Senior Helpers in Franklin, TN, shares how her team strategically integrated seven virtual assistants across recruiting, scheduling, billing, and after-hours support. She walks through their step-by-step approach—from starting with just two VAs to scaling to a fully embedded offshore team. Debbie breaks down key results like a 40% reduction in time-to-hire, 25% fewer canc...