This episode of Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars welcomes Joe Kraus and Linda Donev, a brother and sister team who have had a long and positive impact on the Home Care industry. Joe and Linda created the home care software call that eventually became the Resmed / MatrixCare solution.  They're back for an encore performance with a new offering called Perks4Care.  The episode starts with some fun brother / sister banter as they tell their story, but then they focus on what they learned from years of delivering caregiver rewards and how it inspired their product. Some of their g ..read more

Caregiver Recruiting and Retention is the top concern of agency owners and the most-discussed topic on Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars. In this episode, Nick Bonitatibus returns to the podcast to discuss How to Create an Irresistible offers in the realm of caregiver recruiting.  Guess What? It's not the offer letter (that's far too late) and it's not only about the money. Your irresistible offer begins long before you meet the candidate.  Some of the key concepts that Nick shares are as follows:  Recruiting is Sales and needs to be treated that way The one truly unique ..read more

Rob Christensen is a home care veteran who has runs 4 agencies and day services.  Sadly, some clients get to a stage where they need to have 24-hour care and they can't afford to have that service in their home.  Rob learned that facilities are willing to pay a handsome finders fee (generally one-month of the facility fee)  for a new referral.   So Rob added a service for placing clients in facilities.  The results have been highly beneficial in a number of ways, as follows: Finding the best facility is a beneficial service for the client and their family By building ..read more

The defining challenging of home care, long term supports and services, and day services is recruiting and retaining caregivers.  One of the big recommendations that we hear regarding retention is to create career paths, but at the same time we struggle to make a reasonable margin at the rates that we're able to charge.   Today's guest, in his 3rd appearance on the Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars podcast, is Steve "the Hurricane" Weiss, the CEO of the consulting firm Home Care Evolution. Steve's organization is one of the preeminent home care coaching and consulting organizat ..read more

Loneliness and Isolation have been clinically proven to have hugely negative health outcomes. Just because there's a caregiver in the home or the person participates in a day services program doesn't mean that they aren't lonely and feeling isolated.  I lost my Aunt Myrna a few years back and she had in home care for the last years of her life, but while they were there to provide for her needs they weren't having conversations with her.  By contrast, my mom who is 86 and has Alzheimer's disease participates in a day program, but since she has poor hearing her engagement is low. Tod ..read more

This episode addresses the most critical concern in home care and day services - recruiting and retention of caregivers.  But as a bonus, it offers a way to improve it with science and artificial intelligence.  And... as if that isn't enough there's an offer to use this technology for free AND to get amazon gift cards for the caregivers who participate...  I'm excited already! Today's special guests are John Penrose, the CEO of a company called Agile Brain, and one of his chief scientists Dr. JD Pincus.  Unlike most employee satisfaction surveys where participants rank ans ..read more

Today's episode of Home Care Heroes is exciting because we've expanded to include day services (like Adult Day Care and Day Habilitation for individuals with Intellectual or developmental disabilities).  From now on we'll be calling the podcast Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars. Christina Vlosich is the perfect guest and today's topic explores why home care and day services go together so well.  As a short preview, here are some of the reasons why so many home care agencies are adding day services: Client benefits: Day Service Participants benefit from the social aspect of hav ..read more

Today's episode focuses on the critically important topic of Achieving Balance in managing your home care agency.  Our guest, Becky Reel is the Executive Director of For Papa's Sake Home Care, an agency that she created to honor her grandfather. Becky reflects back on a time when her life was out of balance and running her agency was creating anxiety for her and putting stress on her most important relationships.  Not only has she overcome these challenges, her agency was chosen as the Top Agency of 2022 by Home Care Pulse. For Becky, achieving balance made all the difference. This ..read more

By any measure, Queen Elizabeth lived a noteworthy life. She was vibrant and influential in all but the last few months of her 96 year lifetime.  Today on Home Care Heroes, we talk about why... Our fantastic guest is Jennifer Brine, the CEO of  ANeuFit (pronounced "A New Fit"). Jennifer is a mechanical engineer turned entrepreneur who helps individuals 50 and older to live richer lives by helping them increase their capacity for movement.  Although we touch on movement, the episode covers so much more, including the following: How can we show dignity and respect in the way we ..read more

Today's guest, Miki Rosanis, is an Occupational Therapist working for an artificial intelligence (AI) company called SENSI.AI. They have created the world's first Virtual Care Assistant.  If you have no idea what this means, then you definitely need to check out this episode. Sensi's technology has been specifically developed to assist home care agencies in the US. The Artificial Intelligence technology senses sounds in the care environment and provides sights to the home care agency and to the client's family.  A few examples shared by Miki are as follows: Falls can be detected v ..read more