The Evolving World of Home Care: Past, Present & Future

The Evolving World of Home Care: Past, Present & Future

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Hello uh dear listeners, welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air. I’m Dennis Gill, Senior Sales Consultant at Caresmartz. Today, we are honored to welcome Chris Gerardi, Retired President of Home Helpers & Direct Link and Certified Alzheimer’s Educator. With decades of experience leading mission-driven care, Chris has witnessed firsthand how homecare has transformed from emerging support service to a central pillar of patient centric healthcare. So from demographic shifts and tech innovation to caregiving

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challenges ahead, Chris will share invaluable insights for agencies navigating the future of care. Welcome to the podcast, Chris. Thank you very much, Dennis. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Oh, >> we’re really glad that you were able to take up the time today for our listeners and uh we really hope and I’m pretty sure that this will be a pretty fruitful session for all of the listeners. >> I’m looking forward to it. >> Okay, perfect. So, without wasting any

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time, I’ll straight away jump in with my first question for you. Mhm. >> So, uh, looking back, Chris, uh, how has the home care industry evolved and what hard-earned lessons still hold true for agencies today? >> Well, that’s a really good question and uh, you know, I would start out by saying there’s been an enormous evolution in many parts, but I’d say really the three key areas have been uh, the level of competition. uh you know to give an example in in Illinois when I

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started in the demographic area that I was working I maybe had 10 competitors and by the time I left the business 15 years later there were over a hundred >> um and and so there’s an expansion and in competition not just with caregiving agencies but with home home health agencies providing caregiving and also in some cases facilities moving out to help people as well. Um the other one has another one has been technology. Um got it >> in terms of both operational efficiencies and and measuring metrics

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and in terms of marketing. So you know on the operations side there’s much more capabilities particularly with some AI involved. Now in terms of scheduling and communications with caregivers and uh uh measuring customer uh outcomes um and on the marketing side the whole uh use of internet and social media of course you know from when I started in in 2009 has expanded and accelerated uh and you have many more ways to reach out to people and recruit. And the final one would be training resources. There’s many more

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opportunities now to look for training for caregivers both inhouse and and online. >> Okay, good to know about that. And from your experience, uh what are the biggest barriers to sustainable growth today, especially uh when it comes to caregiver recruitment, uh retention and operational stability? >> Well, in terms of recruitment, uh it certainly goes back to my mention of competition. Okay. So, you have to be able to separate yourself >> um uh in in terms of uh gaining ground

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in the recruitment world and you know where you’re looking for caregivers. Uh I think there should be non-traditional ways considered versus just the typical job boards. uh you know an example meaning um you know recruiting on core values and considering training up people who maybe didn’t think about being a caregiver. Okay, but they have those core values and uh and they want to help people and and you train them to be able to go in the home. >> Um and and then there’s the retention

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value that is a big barrier. uh you know when I started the business maybe 25 30% turnover now uh and it’s recorded there’s 75 to 80% turnover with caregivers so once you get a good caregiver you have to hold on to them and how do you do that I think it’s not with how much you pay them necessarily that’s important but it’s more about how you treat them >> you know treat them equally to their clients treat them with respect and dignity uh be open and honest with them about your business uh help them with

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through their their issues and and keep them on board for as long as possible. >> Correct. Correct. Definitely. Caregiver retention as I’ve had a few sessions with other uh personalities uh from the homecare industry side. So caregiver retention I’ve seen always is the biggest point that everybody discusses that should be there. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. A big challenge but it’s doable if you’re creative about how you do it. Try not to do the same way everybody else and just

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go to those job boards and try and fill up your pipeline that way. >> Got it. Got it. Got it. Uh what key performance metrics uh should agency owners focus on to truly understand what’s working and what’s holding them back? Both the things. >> Uh I think uh the few areas here are primarily quality. You have to be able to measure and prove your quality. You can you can’t just say you’re a great caregiving agency because of how large you are or the time you’ve been in

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business. You’ve got to have metrics that prove to a potential client family that you’ve got a great reputation and there’s ways to do that through benchmarking. There’s organizations out there that do uh nationwide benchmarking along with regional benchmarking to know how you stand up against others in terms of quality. and they’re getting feedback directly from your clients and from your caregivers to allow you to make adjustments and improve that quality. Um, I think the other metric

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would be uh to be measuring c customer outcomes. Super important particularly if you want referrals from the medical industry. They want to know that you’re keeping people from being readmitted to hospitals and living a longer quality life in their home where they’re not necessarily needing medical care because on a non-medical basis you’ve covered all the bases with them and keeping them healthy and happy. >> Um and uh and then there you know client and uh you have to understand your lead

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sources and and what’s producing your caregivers and your clients. Okay. Where are you getting that information from to expand your opportunities? Is it just, you know, through the typical ways or are you using creative ways to stay in touch with clients and nurture that because ultimately it’s word of mouth? That should be your biggest marketing source. Satisfied clients and their families and not just after you’ve moved on from them. Stay in touch with them and continue to

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reap benefits of their uh feelings about your company. >> Yeah, good to know about that too. And just continuing with this question that how important is marketing positioning today and what should agencies evaluate then uh when choosing the right geography or zones for profitability and growth? That’s a great question because this is super important and I went through this myself >> uh when I acquired my franchise is okay uh and it’s going to be dependent upon where you are in the country.

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>> So it’s not the same in every state and sometimes in every county because in some states you might be able to use public aid like Medicaid or even Medicare Advantage, >> but in other states those aren’t going to be profitable sources of business. So, you’ve got to concentrate on private pay or veteran care. And so, you’ve got to be looking at things like what is the 65 population area, uh, you know, uh, going, uh, the population in your area? Are there enough seniors in the

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demographic you have to be clients? What are their median incomes? Is there enough uh, private pay money in your area? >> Are people retiring in the community you’re servicing? Because if they’re retiring and going somewhere else, you’re losing that customer base. So, you need to look at all these things and as well as the kind of veterans and and at the same thing, uh you need to be looking at um is there a way that you can uh get Medicaid reimbursement in your state because some states are very

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good at reimbursing at a profitable rate. So, you need to understand are you going to be uh private pay or public pay or some combination. I wouldn’t say you ever should have all your eggs in one basket though. >> Yeah. So all the things should be covered at that. Private pay, VA, we have insurance. >> All right. Should be covered at that. >> Yes. >> And uh Chris adds demand rises in 2026 and beyond. How can agencies scale without compromising care quality, client satisfaction, and the caregiver

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experience? >> Well, there’s a few opportunities. The most obvious is technology. uh you know with AI uh that is changing everywhere. Uh I I know that Caresmartz is utilizing that and expanding those opportunities and talking about it because it can create efficiencies that allow you to scale by not necessarily adding staff. That was the biggest dilemma back when I had my business. When did you hire that extra scheduler? When do you hire that extra case manager? And now you have

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opportunities to supplement the workload with AI and you should be taking advantage of that not not to replace people but to scale. Okay. Uh you should consider broadening your services. Things like uh uh having a partnership where you can bring a medical reminder system into the home or a fall alert system or camera system that doesn’t necessarily always need a handson caregiver. You have some technology to support the family. Uh I would also then add things like very creative uh scheduling. Uh consider even flexible

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scheduling. Uh something that we tried successfully was to not let the client necessarily dictate the schedule but to identify the best caregiver and then collaborate with the family to get that right caregiver in the home with a schedule that works for everybody both the caregiver and the client. >> Yeah, we do that in case 360. you have that option like finding a caregiver an apt caregiver according to the availabilities what skills and requirements all the things are matched yeah it does help it does help with that

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part >> and continuing with that my last question would be again as we were discussing about the same thing that’s AI so where do you see AI and automation making the biggest real world impact in homeware and where should agencies be cautious >> well that’s a really great question because everybody wants to jump into AI and and My initial advice is to don’t necessarily be the first to test something, but be an early adopter when you know something is being proven by a provider like Carsmarts or or anyone

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else. So, be an early adopter. You know, I know that agencies are now already using it to do things like answer their phones and redirect calls and reach out to caregivers through a platform that’s provided to them. uh you know AI is important to help you uh make those communications not to to depersonalize it but to be more efficient at at making communications and I would also say look at ways of digitizing your paperwork so you are not in a traditional filing system so you can look at things and

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access information very quickly um uh you know uh through uh through digit digitized uh documents and and you know Finally, I would say you want to eliminate paper and move to systems. You know, process is super important. Uh I mean, 80% of your problem in any good company is not the people, it’s the system. So you really need to to be open to using ways uh that are creating efficiencies um and and and in some cases helping you retain great people because they’re not overburdened with

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some of the mundane activities that can be be done by AI. >> Got it. Gotcha point. Got your point. You know it was Thank you. Thank you Chris. It was a very valuable session. I would think for all our listeners from all over the world wherever they’re listening to our session today and it was really really great talking to you today. I know it was a small session definitely we would have love to have another session with you much longer one but this was a small Chris that we have with you today and I hope it does help

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our listeners. >> Well thank you very much and and I I appreciate the opportunity to contribute. >> No problem. Thank you. Thank you for your time and thank you to my listeners today. So, I’m Dennis Gill signing off today and I’ll be shortly back with you guys.