Home Care Strategy Lab

#45 In the past 6-12 months, AI has gone from interesting and useful to reliable and effective. Dave Dworschak from Phoebe explains what that actually means for operators. It’s not a replacement for people, but a teammate that takes repetitive work off administrator’s plates. Dave breaks down three real scheduling workflows where AI is already being used today: last-minute call-out outreach, proac...

#44 Nick Provost started in home care as a teenager at his family’s business and has now spent his entire adult life working his way up in home care, eventually stepping into his current leadership role at Gratitude Homecare in New Jersey. The core of his care philosophy is: every family should look back and say working with us was “the best money we ever spent.” We dig into the reality of private...

#43 - He’s scaled Sunny Days In-Home Care to more than 37,000 hours of care each week across five offices through a mix of organic growth and acquisitions. In this episode, CEO John Bennett breaks down exactly how he’s centralized his back office, structured his org chart, and defined a clear set of North Star KPIs. He shares why hours—not revenue—drive alignment across the organization, how shift...

#42 He grew the business impressively for five years, exited daily operations, and then things didn’t go as planned. Justin Currie, CEO of Thema Home Care opens up about what happened after he stepped away, the people and process issues he discovered, and how he ultimately tuned the business around. He gets detailed and prescriptive on people in the wrong seats, processes not being followed, hard...

#41 Lawyers. Home Care. California. Need we say more… I sat down with Angelo Spinola, ‘the lawyer of home care’, shareholder at Poslinelli, and one of his clients, Yazmin Hamilton, VP of Compliance at industry giant, 24 Hour Home Care. Angelo talks about audit pitfalls, misunderstood regulations, when to bring in outside counsel, and how to be proactive before it’s too late. Yazmin breaks down her...

#40 A $5M home care company can have upwards of 300-500 communication touch points in a single day. It’s not uncommon for an agency to be using 8-12 tech tools and for caregivers to interphase with 3-5 every week. Technology often feels like the root of many issues, even turnover, but often times it’s actually the integration and implementation of these tools. Denise DiSano, the Founder and CEO of...

#39 Melissa Morante didn’t come from home care—she came from New York PR—but since joining her family’s agency in 2016, she’s become one of South Florida’s go-to experts on Parkinson’s and chronic illness care. In this episode, she shares how that deep dive into Parkinson’s led to her building a network of support groups that now serve hundreds of families looking for education, community, and rel...

Live @ HCAOA—20-minute conversation with Clayton Foutch, CEO of Home Matters Caregiving Clayton Foutch on LinkedIn Home Matters Caregiving Home Matters started as a family business in 2007, franchised in 2020, and now has 39 locations nationwide. Built on a nurse-guided, innovation-focused model shaped by Clayton’s engineering background. Traditional care mainly serves the top 5% who can afford $1...

Live @ HCAOA—20-minute conversation with Michelle Cone, SVP of Industry Engagement at HomeWell Franchising, Inc. Michelle Cone on LinkedIn HomeWell Franchising   The investment that’s paid off in home care: 1) learning to lead with patience and 2) learning to play the long game Leading with patience : Don’t scrap ideas or initiatives after a matter of weeks, give important things more time Measure...

Live at HCAOA—30-minute conversation with Stephen Tweed, Founder/CEO of Leading Home Care Highlights Stephen Tweed on LinkedIn leadinghomecare.com Home Care CEO Forum The big metric: Hours per week = the currency of home care Lesson common but more important: Hours per client per week = the health of the business It indicates: Where clients are coming from Which referrals give the longest hour cli...

#38 Most home care agencies talk about “differentiation,” but the Supported Living Group in Connecticut is actually doing it. In this episode, Executive Director Jamie Arber breaks down how his team built a high-acuity, high-retention brain-injury program anchored by Medicaid waivers (ABI), brick-and-mortar program sites, creative arts and vocational services, and an in-house clinical team. He exp...

Live at HCAOA—15 minute conversation with Jenny Cambra, CEO of Senior Helpers Honolulu Highlights : Jenny’s hospitality background and personal family experience with dementia care led her into home care. She sees strong overlap between hospitality and home care—both people-centered service industries. She went to nursing school to better understand and support her caregivers. Early growth came qu...

Live at HCAOA—45 minute conversation with Carmen Perry, the VP of Provider Engagement @ Paradigm Highlights : Carmen started in skilled nursing, where she saw how many seniors wanted to stay home but couldn’t afford care—driving her to learn funding options like Aid & Attendance. Veterans often distrust the VA due to past inconsistencies; bringing in TriWest and Optum improved operations and t...

#37 42% of Direct Care Workers rely on public health coverage and on average only 32% of agencies doing $1.6-4.9M in annual revenue are offering major medical. Joseph Kitonga, CEO of Vitable, breaks down what small, medium, and large agencies need to know about ACA compliance, nuances for part-time and FTEs, major medical plan options, and other advice and warnings when it comes to offer major med...

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...