Home Care Strategy Lab

#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.Keyur Shah on LinkedIn Email: [email protected] Senior Helpers of Coastal Orange County Sponsors:VitableReel Home Care Consulting

#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.Andrew Dobson on [email protected] Tribute Home CareClaude Code Sponsors:Phoebe—AI scheduling teammate that fills 75% of shifts in under 15 minutesReel Home Care Consulting—my recommended consultant for startups focused on differentiation and delivering a hospitality-like experience

#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.Jenni Scherer’s email: [email protected] Caregivers of AmericaTake5 Model ’T’ Chart Sponsors:Reel Home Care Consulting // https://reelhomecareconsulting.com

#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.Becky Reel on [email protected] Reel Home Care ConsultingBecky’s Dinner Series  Sponsors:Vitable Health - https://learn.vitablehealth.com/lab

#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 DanielDaniel Stringer on LinkedInDaniel’s email: [email protected] Total Care ConnectionsEmployee Relief FundTotal Care Connections Grant Circle powered by CanaryCanary—emergency relief fund solution to aide your team members in times of crisis Self-Insured Health Care PartnersTo set up Self Insured Health Plan Options: https://www.thegibsonedge.com/services/employee-benefitsVendors they use in the health plan:SHARX: https://sharxplan.com/Auxient: https://www.auxiant.com/Pareto: https://paretohealth.com/Procedures/Imaging: https://www.valenzhealth.com/Pharmacy Benefits Manager: https://truerx.com/ Sponsors:Vitable HealthHelper Heroes—mention the LAB