Explore every episode of the podcast Home Care Strategy Lab
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
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| 10 Hard-Earned Lessons From Starting a Home Care Agency | 27 oct. 2026 | 01:19:10 | |
#81 The first two years of home care ownership are brutal, and Adam and Marlene Bartlett aren't sugarcoating what it took to build Uplift Home Care from scratch. After investing $200–250K to launch their independent agency in California, they quickly discovered that finding clients was harder than recruiting caregivers, client churn was twice what they'd projected, and building meaningful referral relationships took far longer than expected. They share what's worked (and what hasn't) across caregiver recruiting, paid advertising, community marketing, and early office hires—including why promoting a caregiver into a care coordinator role became one of their best decisions. They've also built an unusually lean operation, using an offshore scheduler and AI to handle roughly 90% of their caregiver hiring process and 70% of their client intake and care planning workflow. Sponsors:
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| How to Help Veterans Who Don’t Want Help at Home (Megan Casey) | 20 oct. 2026 | 00:55:22 | |
#80 After nearly 15 years of serving thousands of veterans, Megan Casey has learned that one of the hardest parts of veteran care is getting fiercely independent veterans to accept help in the first place. She explains why agencies need to work around a veteran’s pride rather than try to change it, and why the best approach is simply meeting them where they are. Megan shares stories of veterans who started with just an hour or two of care before building enough trust to accept more help as their needs changed. She also gets candid about PTSD, addiction, isolation, weapons in the home, and the difficult balance between respecting a veteran’s choices and protecting caregivers. Most importantly, Megan explains why that first caregiver match matters so much—and why agencies should put down the assessment form, learn what makes the veteran tick, and earn their trust before trying to change their routine.
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| The Optimize Infrastructure Blueprint for $2-12 Million Dollar Agencies (Debbie Miller) | 13 oct. 2026 | 01:18:18 | |
#79 Does this sound like your agency?
You know your agency needs to be redesigned so your best people can spend more time doing their highest-value work—but you don’t have the time or a clear model for doing it. This session will help you identify structural bottlenecks, clarify roles and ownership, and redesign your team to support the agency’s next stage of growth.
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| The Build Infrastructure Blueprint for $0-2 Million Dollar Agencies (Debbie Miller) | 06 oct. 2026 | 01:22:36 | |
#78 Does this sound like your agency?
You know you need more help—but you also need to make the right hires, assign the right responsibilities, and build the right infrastructure before you and your team burn out. This session will help you understand what your agency needs now, what can wait, and how to build an office team that supports your next stage of growth.
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| The Revenue Cycle Controls Every Medicaid Agency Needs (Julio Barea) | 29 sept. 2026 | 01:07:10 | |
#77 Most Medicaid billing problems begin long before a claim is submitted, with breakdowns in eligibility, authorization, scheduling, EVV, documentation, payer setup, or coding. Julio Barea, founder of the Home Care Revenue Institute, explains why agencies need to think beyond billing and manage the entire revenue cycle from intake through payment. He walks through the controls behind a clean claim, including how to verify authorized hours, reduce EVV exceptions, and catch problems before they become denials. Julio also shares the daily, weekly, and monthly cadence agencies should follow, along with critical KPIs like denial rate, payment time, EVV acceptance, and scheduled versus authorized hours. He closes with practical ways agency owners can better support their billers and develop them into trained revenue cycle management specialists.
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| Your Financing Options at Every Stage of Home Care Growth (Domenic Colavito) | 22 sept. 2026 | 01:00:01 | |
#76 - More revenue doesn’t automatically solve cash flow—especially when payroll is weekly and payers can take 30, 60, or even 90 days to reimburse. Domenic Colavito, co-founder and COO of the $15 million OurCare Health, breaks down lines of credit, payroll funding, factoring, asset-based lending, SBA loans, and equity financing. He explains how an agency’s size, payer mix, profitability, collection time, and growth goals determine which options are actually available—and which are worth the cost. Domenic also explains factoring in simple terms and shares how predictable cash flow helped OurCare grow from roughly $6 million to $10 million without giving up equity or worrying about weekly payroll. The conversation covers the risks of financing, the billing problems it can expose, and what owners should clean up before approaching a financial partner.
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| How a First-Time Owner Built to 1,000 Weekly Hours in 20 Months (Keyur Shah) | 15 sept. 2026 | 01:13:03 | |
#75 Keyur Shah entered home care with no ownership or healthcare experience and grew Senior Helpers of Coastal Orange County to 1,000 weekly hours in just 20 months. He walks through the agency’s growth month by month—from reaching 300 hours in Month 3 and becoming profitable in Month 9 to generating $700,000 in Year 1. Keyur explains why he opened with an office manager, added a VA recruiter in Month 4, hired a full-time scheduler near 500 hours, and waited until Month 18 to hand off client care. He also shares the ~$150,000 investment it took to reach operational breakeven, the impact of sudden client losses, and why consistent referrals took more than two years of networking. His biggest lesson applies to owners at every stage: don’t wait to grow before you hire—hire the team that can create and sustain the growth.
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| How Tribute Is Building AI In-House and Saving 300+ Hours a Month (Andrew Dobson) | 08 sept. 2026 | 01:03:37 | |
#74 Tribute Home Care has no engineers, so Andrew Dobson stepped up and is helping build AI tools in-house that collectively save 300+ hours per month. He explains how a scheduling dashboard evolved into an availability analyzer that helps staff new cases faster at 90–95% caregiver utilization. Tribute also used a Viv-built voice agent to fill 75% of its open weekend visits in an early test. Andrew shares how they condensed a five-system lead process into one workflow and reduced two days of financial reporting to a button press. He offers practical advice for finding the right AI projects, developing an internal champion, validating outputs, and keeping humans involved wherever judgment and relationships matter. Sponsors:
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| How Caregivers of America Rebuilt Operations Around the Client Journey (Jenni Scherer) | 01 sept. 2026 | 00:59:34 | |
#73 After six home care companies merged, Caregivers of America was left with six ways of doing things, costly process gaps, and no clear ownership of the full client journey. Regional Administrator Jenni Scherer explains how the company rebuilt operations around five stages of the client journey: FirstTake, InTake, UpTake, CareTake, and ReTake. She breaks down the touch-points behind the model, including an in-home visit that converts close to 99% of prospects, five coordinator calls during the first 30 days, and regular in-person visits for VIP clients receiving 30 or more hours of care each week. Jenni also shares why the journey shouldn’t end at discharge: returning former clients have become Caregivers of America’s second-largest referral source, followed by referrals from clients’ families and friends.
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| You Can’t Afford to Say Yes to the Wrong Client (Becky Reel) | 26 août 2026 | 00:58:48 | |
#72 Saying yes to every family might increase revenue, but one wrong-fit client can cost your agency caregivers, reputation, and weeks of scheduling headaches. Becky Reel explains the waitlist mindset she used to protect her team, strengthen the client experience, and create demand—and why a true waitlist is fundamentally different from a staffing problem. She shares the hard lines her agency established around shift minimums, geography, caregiver safety, unrealistic expectations, and families who began negotiating from the first conversation. We also break down what a hospitality-driven intake call sounds like and why every office employee should be prepared to handle one. Becky closes with four super powerful mindset shifts that will help your agency become easier to refer, more memorable, and impossible to confuse with the competition.
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| Three Workforce Development Programs That Actually Support Caregivers (Daniel Stringer) | 18 août 2026 | 01:08:57 | |
#71 Total Care Connections CEO Daniel Stringer shares how his team supports a workforce of roughly 1,000 active employees delivering 17,000 hours of care each week. He breaks down a paid-leave program that provides six weeks after childbirth plus two weeks of parental leave for birth, foster, and adoptive parents. He explains the company’s employee relief fund and how it has awarded 264 grants totaling more than $200,000, with employees eligible for up to $1,000 annually. Daniel also shares how moving to self-funded health insurance helped the company keep employee costs flat despite receiving a 76% renewal increase—and reduced some employees’ prescription costs from $500–$700 per month to $50 or even zero. This episode gives home care owners three tangible ways to invest in caregivers and start building benefits that meet our workforce needs. Connect with Daniel
Employee Relief Fund
Self-Insured Health Care Partners
Vendors they use in the health plan:
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| A Financial Framework to Run Before Your Next Growth Move (Adam Shriver) | 13 août 2026 | 01:03:57 | |
#70 A typical $4-5M home care agency usually has the team, infrastructure, and capital to consider their next growth move—opening a new office, adding a new payer contract, or investing in a strategic leader. Adam Shriver, Client CFO at The Home Care CPAs works with dozens of agencies to evaluate revenue, profitability, and operational stability going into making these large growth decisions. He walks through the evaluation he conducts, the questions he asks, gross margin vs operating margin, and the other factors agencies should consider before going down a specific growth path—if you’re considering a new office or new payer contract, this episode is highly relevant.
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| The Only Home Care Scorecard You Need (Krystal Wilkinson) | 28 juil. 2026 | 01:10:27 | |
#69 Most home care agencies are drowning in reports but still struggling to identify problems before they impact growth. Krystal Wilkinson, President of Adultcare Assistance Home Care, shares the 18 core KPIs she and her leadership team review every week across recruiting, scheduling, care management, sales, and HR & finance—and explains why leading indicators matter far more than monthly reports. You'll learn why her agency targets a 25–27 hour average client census, aims to hire caregivers in under 7 days (currently averaging 9 days), tracks 25 meaningful referral visits per week, and uses data to predict staffing needs, revenue dips, and referral trends before they happen. Krystal also explains how her team uses AI-powered dashboards, why every department owns specific numbers, and how they've refined their scorecard over 15 years of trial and error.
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| Four Ways for Caregivers to Increase Their Pay Rate (Kimberly Jones) | 21 juil. 2026 | 01:03:43 | |
#68 When a caregiver asks, “when do I get my next raise?”, do you have a good answer? Kimberly Jones, Vice President of Help at Home Senior Care, shares the transparent four-part compensation framework her team uses to reward skill development, specialized training, long-term commitment, and leadership. We break down hands-on competency evaluations, dementia skill assessments, certification pathways, longevity bonuses, and why clear career progression has helped the agency retain caregivers for many years. Kimberly also shares the retention data behind the program, including why 66% of their caregivers have stayed for more than two years and why their highest-paid caregivers average 6.5 years with the company.
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| How to Build an Advanced Dementia Care Program (Ryan Whittington) | 14 juil. 2026 | 00:58:09 | |
#67 Ryan Whittington, CEO of Seniors Home Care in St. Louis, shares how one struggling dementia client led his team to build Sage In-home Memory Care—a completely separate brand dedicated to serving advanced dementia clients with a fundamentally different care model. Instead of treating dementia as another service line, Ryan explains how specialized caregivers, weekly care management visits, life story assessments, individualized activity calendars, and intensive training have created better outcomes for clients, families, and caregivers alike. We also discuss why consistency matters more than flexibility, how to overcome resistance to care, why advanced dementia clients require a true team approach, and the business decisions that make this model sustainable. | |||
| What It Looks Like to Sell to a Home Care Roll-Up And Stay On | 07 juil. 2026 | 01:03:41 | |
#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 right acquisition fit, what due diligence actually looked like, and why culture mattered more than valuation. They also share how they divide responsibilities after the sale, which functions are centralized versus kept local, and why giving operators autonomy has been critical to continued growth.
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| Why You Might Be Headed For 6-Figure Fines (And How to Avoid Them) | 30 juin 2026 | 00:51:30 | |
#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 difficult. We break down how the 50 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) threshold is calculated, the misconceptions that lead agencies into trouble, and why penalties can quickly climb into the six figures. Brendan also walks through how ACA audits typically unfold, why compliance issues often surface years later, and the common mistakes agencies make along the way. | |||
| Can Your Agency Survive Losing Its Best Scheduler? (Corey Grissom) | 25 juin 2026 | 00:23:28 | |
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| The Hidden Cost of Bad Data in Home Care (Brady Schwab) | 23 juin 2026 | 00:22:23 | |
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| How Team Select Is Predicting Readmissions Before They Happen (Meghan Willson) | 18 juin 2026 | 00:21:41 | |
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| Why Response Time is Your Most Important Sales Metric (Brad Gilmore) | 16 juin 2026 | 00:31:43 | |
Bonus episode recorded live @ Home Care Innovation Forum in Palm Springs, CA
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| Nearly 100% Show Rates When AI Handles 830 Caregiver Touches a Week (Nate West) | 09 juin 2026 | 01:21:16 | |
#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, transitioning from reactive scheduling to proactively filling shifts days and weeks in advance, and the role AI is playing in caregiver communication, shift confirmations, and open shift management. And maybe more importantly, we discuss what happens when technology frees schedulers from constant firefighting and allows them to focus on relationships, retention, and the overall client/caregiver experience.
• Median open shift fill time of just 9.7 minutes • No-call/no-shows reduced from 8 to just 1 year-over-year • 830 caregiver touch points per week handled by AI • 2,800+ shifts confirmed with a 97.8% confirmation rate
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| The Gold Standard for Dementia Home Care (Jim Kimzey) | 02 juin 2026 | 01:13:32 | |
#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 better dementia outcomes, an eight-step process for overcoming care refusal, and the gold standard for supporting complex dementia clients at home. He also explains how a dementia-first approach can reduce caregiver burnout, ease operational strain, and create better experiences for clients and families. This conversation is a practical roadmap for delivering better care to anyone serving dementia clients and families.
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| Top Five Sales Activities that Drive Home Care Referrals (Sean Reiley) | 26 mai 2026 | 01:00:43 | |
#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 manage, what productivity should look like week-to-week, and the biggest mistakes operators and sales leaders make when managing referral accounts.
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| The Real Barrier to Aging-in-Place Technology Isn’t Families (Paula Marks) | 19 mai 2026 | 01:04:28 | |
#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 resistance coming from referral sources themselves, Paula breaks down what’s actually preventing families from aging safely at home—and why quality, prevention, and trusted partnerships will dictate the future of home care.
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| How Coastal Care Partners Built a One-of-a-kind Integrated Care Model (Amy Pierce) | 12 mai 2026 | 01:01:59 | |
#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-house to control quality and outcomes. About 1–2 years later, they added clinical oversight so they could handle situations like a 4pm Friday change in condition without sending clients to the ER. Fast forward 8 years, Coastal Care Partners has grown to 340+ employees and become the largest single-site home care company in Georgia, with an integrated team that includes physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, and therapists—even operating multiple primary care practices and specialty services. Their caregivers go through a 100-hour internal training program, reinforcing their reputation as “elite” providers in their market. Amy shares how they built this model step-by-step—“building the airplane while flying it”—why hiring and communication are everything, and how integration allows them to manage rising conditions like dementia, Parkinson’s, and heart disease more effectively at home. She also breaks down the operational lessons, leadership challenges, and why she believes integrated care is the future of aging services. Show Notes:
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| Scaling to $13M Without Investors, Diversified Payers, or Traditional Playbooks (Scott Pierce) | 05 mai 2026 | 01:08:55 | |
#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 unconventional decisions behind their growth:
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| The Office Team, SOPs, and Networking that Took Him from 700 to 3,000 Hours/Week (Conant Schoenly) | 28 avr. 2026 | 01:04:52 | |
#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 process improvement. Conant breaks down how he hires and develops his office team, how they approach micro vs. macro SOP changes, and why regularly visiting other home care operators has been a game-changer for challenging his thinking and bringing fresh ideas back to the business. Sponsors: | |||
| The 6 Preventable Gaps Driving 30-Day Readmissions (Ethan Guerrieri) | 21 avr. 2026 | 00:58:34 | |
#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 and SNFs, this evidence-based approach equips case managers and discharge planners with the tools and education they need to reduce readmissions—and shows why home care is the missing link in keeping clients safely at home.
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| What 110,000+ Caregiver Applicants are Telling Us (Jen Waldron) | 14 avr. 2026 | 00:59:52 | |
#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-hire stats, previous caregiving experience, and top benefits applicants are looking for. Jen shares data and insights she’s gleaned having seen nearly 1 million caregiver applications over the years—the results are simple, yet staggering.
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| How CareAdvantage Integrates Virtual Assistants into Recruiting and On-Call (Olivia Jones) | 07 avr. 2026 | 00:58:46 | |
#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 weekly, while also placing dozens into their new caregiver training program. Olivia explains down how they hire, onboard, and train VAs like any other team member, and why that’s critical to success. She also unpacks how they’re unraveling a 30+ person, reactive on-call model with a proactive, live-answer approach that improves both cost and quality. The integration of VAs is creating a new hybrid operating model that’s helping CareAdvantage cut costs, improve quality, and increase accessibility.
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| How Debbie Miller is Approaching $1M from GUIDE—And Giving Away Her Exact System | 31 mars 2026 | 01:02:01 | |
#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:
She partnered with Harmonic Health to bring it all together—and the results speak for themselves: 1) over $500K generated (and climbing toward $1M) from GUIDE clients and 2) significant additional revenue from added hours. Debbie calls GUIDE “the best thing to hit home care in 20 years”—but only for providers who take action.If you’re sitting on GUIDE and waiting for it to work… this is what it actually looks like to make it work.
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| Should Home Care Build, Buy, or Partner with Care Management (Steve Barlam) | 24 mars 2026 | 01:01:12 | |
#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 aging life care management, and why clarity in terminology and scope are essential for both families and providers. We unpack the business realities of adding care management—from recruiting the right talent to navigating pricing, market demand, and referral dynamics. Steve also explains how care management can both drive home care growth and coexist with external partners when done thoughtfully. He offers a forward-looking perspective on the industry, adapting to technology, coaching families, and the urgent need to scale care management to meet the growing demand.
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| The Story of Halcyon Home: From Flyers on a College Campus to 1,000 Employees (Amy Sweet) | 19 mars 2026 | 00:37:55 | |
#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 company—and what she learned navigating the complex Texas licensing process. She discusses the leadership challenges of scaling multiple service lines, hiring the right people to grow each department, and communicating how home care, home health, and hospice work together both internally and externally. Today, Halcyon provides thousands of visits every day and employs nearly 1,000 people across its services. Amy also shares her long-term vision of building an intergenerational community where seniors, students, and children thrive together.
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| Mommy Side Hustle Turned Thriving Nurse-Led Home Care Business (Jenny Johnson) | 17 mars 2026 | 00:26:09 | |
#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, prioritizing high-need clients, empowering her office team to make decisions, and creating growth opportunities for caregivers. She also explains how adding care management became a game-changing service line, helping her team address both the task-based needs of clients and the bigger clinical picture families struggle to navigate. She’s just a few years into her journey and she’s building an inspiring nurse-led model of care with a story and success everyone can learn something from. Sponsors: | |||
| How One Home Care Provider is Adapting to the MCO Medicaid Model in Indiana (Christian Sullivan) | 11 mars 2026 | 01:05:48 | |
#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 stuck on long waiting lists, and what this shift could mean long term. Relevant for any home care operator—but especially those serving Medicaid or operating in managed care states. Sponsors: | |||
| What’s Happening in Home Care M&A And How it Impacts Operators (Cory Mertz) | 04 mars 2026 | 00:51:53 | |
#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 highly unique businesses aren’t always the most attractive acquisition targets, and how buyers are thinking differently today than they were a few years ago. Cory also opens up about the emotional side of selling, the life events that change an owner’s timeline, and what transition risk really looks like before, during, and after a sale. | |||
| A Masterclass on the Medicare GUIDE Program for Home Care (Jenna Morgenstern-Gaines) | 25 févr. 2026 | 01:08:02 | |
#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 enrollment, what services are actually included, and how home care agencies can use GUIDE to strengthen and differentiate their dementia care. If dementia is part of your caseload, this is an episode you can’t afford to miss. GUIDE isn’t just another program—it’s an early signal of where dementia care, reimbursement, and home care integration are heading. Sponsors:
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| Home Care Leaders Are Sleeping on Social Media (Nick Bonitatibus) | 11 févr. 2026 | 01:05:47 | |
#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 attract referrals and talent, and what real relationship-building looks (and it’s not cold DMs). We talk about how to translate visibility and credibility into real business outcomes—tune in. | |||
| Why Higher Rates Don’t Always Mean Higher Revenue (Jesse Walters) | 04 févr. 2026 | 00:59:57 | |
#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 care along the way. He also discusses opening multiple de novo offices in his California market—by the way, de novo means starting from the beginning—and what that taught him about rates as a long-term strategy, not just a short-term revenue lever. About Hillendale Sponsors: | |||
| How AI Is Actually Being Used for Scheduling Tasks in Home Care (Dave Dworschak) | 28 janv. 2026 | 01:05:10 | |
#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, proactive shift confirmation, and missed clock-in and clock-out cleanup. Tasks that used to take schedulers 1.5 to 2 hours are now being handled in under 15 minutes. We focus on how agencies can integrate AI into their existing systems, workflows, and culture to reduce constraints, protect revenue, and give teams their time back without adding headcount. If you're interested in learning more about Lab Partners—email me at miriam@homecarestrategylab.com. | |||
| He Started in Home Care at 17—Now He Oversees 113 Referral Accounts (Nick Provost) | 21 janv. 2026 | 00:58:46 | |
#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-pay business development in home care and the two hats every great BD leader must wear: building referral relationships and converting those referrals into clients. Nick had no formal sales training, but he explains how active listening, being a true resource, and deep industry knowledge have helped him thrive in a highly competitive market. He breaks down what’s working with his top referral accounts, how he asks for and earns business, and the feedback loops that keep referrals coming back consistently. Sponsors: | |||
| Why Hours is a More Effective Metric than Revenue (John Bennett) | 14 janv. 2026 | 01:05:19 | |
#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 coverage acts as a real-time pulse check on culture, and how RACI thinking brings clarity as teams grow. John also walks through the challenge of getting buy-in during periods of change, especially when roles evolve and specialization increases. And he shares the teams' simple but powerful focus: maximizing the “hours of good” they delivers to individuals and families who need care most.
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| Hard Lessons Learned After Exiting Daily Operations And What Came Next (Justin Currie) | 06 janv. 2026 | 01:01:21 | |
#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 decisions and conversations he had to have, and the results of re-engaging in daily operations. He also shares an exciting update about partnering with the American Health at Home fund to expand his business and open new doors for accelerated growth. Sponsors:
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| An Inside Look at Legal and Compliance of an Eight-Figure Home Care Company | 30 déc. 2025 | 01:09:28 | |
#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 20-person compliance team, what they’re focused on, how they operate, and lessons learned scaling across states, services, and payor sources. These two keep what could be a dry legal episode, fresh with stories and frameworks applicable to any home care business.
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| Why Agencies Are Drowning in Tech and How to Fix It (Denise DiSano) | 16 déc. 2025 | 01:08:06 | |
#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 enCappture breaks down her 3 C’s framework to analyze and improve your tech selection, adoption, and consolidation.
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| How Chronic Disease Support Groups Became a Growth Engine for This Agency (Melissa Morante) | 09 déc. 2025 | 00:49:42 | |
#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 relief from caregiver burnout. We talk about what it really takes to run effective support groups, why consistency matters more than structure, where she hosts these groups, and how these gatherings have become one of the agency’s most meaningful differentiators. Melissa also opens up about the challenges and the opportunities ahead as they expand into other chronic illnesses and community partnerships. | |||
| Only 5% Can Afford Traditional Home Care with Clay Foutch | 05 déc. 2025 | 00:25:14 | |
Live @ HCAOA—20-minute conversation with Clayton Foutch, CEO of Home Matters Caregiving
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| Why Home Care Leaders Need to Play the Long Game with Michelle Cone | 04 déc. 2025 | 00:24:40 | |
Live @ HCAOA—20-minute conversation with Michelle Cone, SVP of Industry Engagement at HomeWell Franchising, Inc.
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| Focus More on Hours Per Client Per Week with Stephen Tweed | 03 déc. 2025 | 00:31:30 | |
Live at HCAOA—30-minute conversation with Stephen Tweed, Founder/CEO of Leading Home Care
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