Home Care Strategy Lab

#66 Adam Berry built As Close as Family over nearly a decade before realizing the business had outgrown what he could sustainably manage on his own. Rather than walking away, he sold the agency to Avenues Home Care and stayed on to focus on the work he enjoys most while gaining the back-office support he was missing. In this episode, Adam and Avenues CEO Doug Markham break down how they found the...

#65 Many home care agencies don't realize they've crossed the Affordable Care Act threshold until the IRS comes knocking. Brendan Mullins, CRO of Vitable Health, explains why agencies with as early as $1–2M in annual revenue can already qualify as Applicable Large Employers, how 30 hours per week (not 40) triggers eligibility, and why variable caregiver schedules make ACA compliance especially dif...

We cover: Why home care leaders are moving from AI exploration to real-world adoption. The buy-vs-build debate and why many agencies are choosing AI partnerships. Helping schedulers spend less time chasing call-outs and more time supporting people. Supporting owner-operators as they scale from zero schedulers to their first hire. How AI can fill open shifts in minutes instead of hours. Moving from...

We cover: Brady's journey from audiology to home care innovation. Right at Home's growth to 600+ franchises across four countries. Staying focused on non-medical home care. Why AI is exposing long-standing data quality issues. The importance of data hygiene and integrity. How bad data can erode trust and create risk. Common gaps in referral tracking, scheduling, and workflows. Making care document...

We cover: Team Select's growth across 15 states, 9,000 employees, and 5,000 patients. Meghan's transition from physical therapist to technology leader. Using operational technology to reinvest dollars into patients and caregivers. Building a new enterprise data warehouse from the ground up. Why successful AI starts with a strong data foundation. The launch of CareSight AI and Team Select's partner...

Bonus episode recorded live @ Home Care Innovation Forum in Palm Springs, CA Key topics include: Why weekly new revenue is the most important sales measurement and how it provides a real-time view of where new business is coming from. Ensuring sales activity stays aligned with referral accounts that are actively generating new business. What success looks like for new sales reps, including trackin...

#64 Most home care agencies are still operating the old way: phone calls, spreadsheets, reactive scheduling, and constant firefighting. Nate West, owner of Heritage Home Care in Arizona, joins me to discuss how he's transformed a well-established agency from what he jokingly calls "the Stone Age" into a modern, tech-enabled operation in just two years.  He talks about eliminating edge cases, trans...

#63 Most home care agencies treat dementia care as a service line. Full Bloom built an entire company around it. Jim Kimzey, Co-Founder of Full Bloom Home Care, shares the systems, training, and care philosophy that allow his team to successfully serve some of the most challenging dementia clients while helping caregivers, families, and staff thrive. Jim breaks down the three levers that drive bet...

#62 Most home care sales reps stay busy—but very few generate high-quality referrals consistently. Sean Reiley, CTO at 52 Weeks Marketing, breaks down the specific sales activities, scorecards, benchmarks, and accountability systems that separate top-performing reps from everyone else. Sean shares the five sales activities that actually drive referrals, how many referral sources a rep should manag...

#61 90% of home care calls still happen in crisis mode—after the fall, hospitalization, or cognitive decline has already escalated. Paula Marks, VP of At Home Caregivers, explains why the industry must move from reactive “sick care” to preventative wellness models before the caregiver shortage reaches a breaking point. From the growing demand for in-home monitoring technology to the surprising res...

#60 Amy Pierce spent more than 20 years as a nurse and saw firsthand how fragmented healthcare makes it incredibly difficult—especially for older adults—to navigate.  In 2018, she and her husband Scott set out to fix that. They started with nurse-led care management, quickly growing to ~10 clients before expanding the team—and within just six months realized they needed to bring caregiving in-hous...

#59 Scott Pierce didn’t come from home care—he came from broadcasting and healthcare software. But after navigating his parents’ complex health needs, he and his wife Amy built something entirely different in Savannah, Georgia. Eight years later, Coastal Care Partners is doing nearly $13M in revenue and 7,000 hours of care per week —all from a single location. Scott breaks down some of the unconve...

#58 His father founded the first home care company in Connecticut in 1985. After leaving to pursue a career in finance and private equity, Conant rejoined the family business in 2018. What he walked into? Whiteboards, minimal systems, and plenty of opportunity. In less than eight years, he’s helped 4x the business, driven by thoughtful change management, stronger office staff, and continuous proce...

#57 The federal government invested $500 million to understand why seniors are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days—and uncovered six key “preventable” gaps driving the problem. Ethan Guerrieri, VP of Operations at Preferred Care at Home, breaks down the research, explains each gap, and shares how his team turned these insights into their Smooth Transition Care Program. Designed for hospitals...

#56 From 110,713 caregiver applicants, 76% of those hired live less than 20 miles from the center of an agency’s service area. Location, hours, and pay are a few of the most important things applicants care about according to Jen Waldron, Co-Founder of Augusta. Every quarter, Augusta publishes the Recruitment Benchmark Report that details top recruitment channels, interview preferences, time-to-hi...

#55 Adding virtual assistants hasn’t just been a cost-strategy, it’s become a growth strategy for CareAdvantage. EVP Olivia Jones shares how initial skepticism gave way to a fully integrated model supporting both recruiting and on-call operations. Today, a team of 6 VAs drives the top of the recruiting funnel—each completing ~220 calls per week and collectively bringing in 40+ new caregivers weekl...

#54 So you joined the GUIDE Program…but referrals aren’t coming in like you expected. Now what? That’s exactly where Debbie Miller—Owner of Senior Helpers Nashville and Founder of 52 Weeks Marketing—found herself. Instead of waiting, she got to work. After running into gaps during implementation, Debbie didn’t just “figure it out”—she built a complete system around GUIDE: A step-by-step process to...

#53 “Care managers turn chaos into clarity—bridging what families want with what their loved ones truly need.” Steve Barlam, a 40+ year geriatric care management leader, former ALCA president, and CEO of JFS Care, shares lessons from building one of the most integrated care management–led home care models in the country. He breaks down the critical differences between home care management and agin...

#52 What began as a personal mission to find young, hip caregivers for her aunt quickly turned into a business opportunity—and eventually the founding of Halcyon Home, now the 4th largest woman-owned business based in Austin, TX. CEO Amy Sweet shares how her clinical background as a physician assistant led her to quickly add geriatric care management, home health, and hospice to her home care comp...

#51 Jenny Johnson was an ICU nurse when a traumatic health crisis in her family changed the course of her career. After discovering private in-home nursing care, she decided to launch her own home care company, Heart of Gold Nursing. Jenny shares the leadership lessons she learned transitioning from hospital culture to running a home care business—building strong communication systems, prioritizin...

#50 Indiana switched its Medicaid home care system to Managed Care in 2024—and two years later, many providers say the transition is still a “hot mess,” to put it mildly. Christian Sullivan, an office manager at one of Altra Home Care’s four Indiana locations, shares what it’s really been like on the ground: navigating new MCO relationships, managing operational complexity, supporting clients stuc...

#49 Every home care business will go through a transition at some point in time via buy, sell, or exit. Cory Mertz, Managing Partner at Mertz Taggart shares why owners often overestimate “the multiple” and underestimate risk, and how factors like reimbursement exposure, transition planning, and management depth quietly drive value. We talk about common blind spots in profitable agencies, why highl...

#48 You’ve probably heard about the Medicare GUIDE program—but you may still be wondering: Is my agency a fit? And how do we actually participate? PocketRN Co-Founder and CEO Jenna Morgenstern-Gaines delivers one of the clearest breakdowns I’ve heard on how GUIDE really works. We unpack the program model, the difference between participants and partner organizations, patient eligibility and enroll...

#47 If you’re building a strong culture, social media is easy. If you’re not, social media feels impossible—and most leaders opt out. Nick Bonitatibus breaks down how home care leaders should actually be using social platforms: not as a sales channel, but as a weekly business tool. We talk about what content really performs right now, why raw posts build more trust than polished ones, how to attra...

#46 There’s more to private pay rates than most people think. Jesse Walters, CEO of Hillendale Home Care, shares what it’s like to operate as both a low-cost provider and a premium provider—and the challenges that come with each. Jesse walks through acquiring Hillendale, scaling the business by 600% in just three years, and how pricing decisions impacted competition, staffing, and continuity of ca...