Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars Ankota

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 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 great suggestions for rewarding caregivers are as follows:
It's better to give rewards oftenIn addition to the monetary value of the reward, caregivers appreciate looking back at these accomplishmentsGift cards make great rewards, but not every caregiver likes the same things (e.g., a Starbucks card isn't great for a caregiver who doesn't like coffee)Being able to cash in rewards and use gift cards on the spot is a great thing (and an app helps with that)Raffles (the chance for one lucky caregiver to win a big surprise each month) are a great way to enhance the value of the reward systemOne of the things that I love about their offering is that they don't charge per caregiver per month and instead they just charge a small fee on top of the rewards that you purchase, PLUS they pay for the raffles out of their own profit.  This is why we'll be recommending Perks4Care to our Ankota customers.

Please enjoy the full episode with Joe and Linda and take the opportunity to learn more about their offering at perks4care.com.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency.. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com. 

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 wayThe one truly unique thing about your agency is your personal story - you need to tell it wellYou need to convey WHY you do what you do. It's means more to candidates than what you doNext is culture...  You need to show that your caregivers are happy and well taken care of by your agencyYour website needs to tell all of these storiesand more...You can get in touch with Nick, plus get free resources, by visiting https://www.thedigitalchamps.com/.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency.. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com. 

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 familyBy building relationships with local facilities, they'll turn to your agency when their residents (e.g., in independent living or assisted living) need services.The payoff is both high dollar and high margin. Rob spoke of single placements that paid $8,000.After making this process work in his first location, Rob went on to improve the process and automate a solution. This includes cataloging detailed facility information for making the best match, the ability to send HIPAA compliant referrals for evaluation, and a tool for tracking all the placements that are in progress.

Check out the full episode to learn more.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency.. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com. 

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 organizations in the US.  I had the priviledge to attend one of Steve's Home Care boot camps and a specific session, on the topic of "Care Coordinators" resonated strongly with me. Today's episode dives into the way that adding care coordinators to a home care agency does three key things: 1) It creates a career care, 2) It results in a differentiated level of care, and 3) It gives you an opportunity to charge more. 

The term "TRIFECTA" comes from betting on horse racing. To win this kind of bet you need to pick the first place, second place and 3rd place horses, in order.  So the connotation is that a Trifecta is a big three-part win.  Some of the key concepts addressed in the episode are as follows:
Having Care Coordinators creates a career path within your agency for the right kinds of peopleThese coordinators ensure that the client's needs are well understood and that the caregiver(s) are well-prepared to do an excellent jobSince the best home care clients have complex needs, having a coordinator check in regularly makes sure that the care is evolving with those needs as they change.Another key benefit is that unlike your competitors who will start recruiting for a caregiver once they close the client, your coordinators have flexibility in their schedules to start care right away and meet families right away when opportunities present themselvesYet another benefit is that junior caregivers are supported and know that a senior team member will be visiting regularly to help them. This cuts down on cases where newly trained caregivers feel overwhelmed and quitLastly, having coordinators results in a premium service that you can charge for.  Some agencies justifiably raise their rates when they have care coordinators and others charge separately for the coordinators, and families are willing to pay.Despite this episode being a deep dive into care coordination, it really only scratches the surface. Home Care Evolution will provide a free consulting session to your agency on this topic or many others.  Plus, as I said, attending one of their boot camps opens your eyes to many ways the best agencies are thriving.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency.. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com. 

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.

Today's guest Deb Skovron, created a program called Circle Talk (see CircleTalk.org) which is used in home care and various day programs including PACE programs. She has witnessed many instances where a weekly program that encourages people to form relationships has dramatically improved participants' quality of life.

I'd highly encourage you to learn more about Deb and the  CircleTalk program itself, but we always make sure that when you listen to Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars, that you will come away from the episode with actions that you can put into place right away.  We're going to share this podcast episode via an email suggesting 10 great conversation starters that your caregivers can use to drive meaningful connections with clients.

You can learn more about Deb and CircleTalk by visiting CircleTalk.org.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency.. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com. 

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.  Most surveys are long, boring and not very accurate. Participants typically respond without much thought or even understanding. AgileBrain is different. It's a 3-minute exercise where you select images that correspond to ways you feel. So, it's fun, fast and easy to do even for caregivers with limited English language skills. And because AgileBrain is grounded in science, the results are astounding...  AgileBrain can predict how long a caregiver candidate is likely to stay and give you early warning about existing caregivers' likelihood to quit. Armed with this information you can take actions to recruit and retain better.

If it sounds too good to be true, they'll let you try it for free AND 25 of the caregivers who complete the assessment will receive a $25 Amazon gift card every time they complete an assessment.  Why would they do this you might ask...  Whether you realize it or not, you are interacting with artificial intelligence (AI) every day. Two simple examples are when Amazon.com suggests "Customers who bought that item also purchased this one," or when Netflix proposes the next movie you might like to watch.  Their models are pretty good and the reason is that they're based on lots of data. Agile Brain is asking for home care agencies, Adult Day Service Providers, and disability server providers to use their technology for free so that they can expand their model to include a rich and diverse set of caregivers.

To participate in the survey go to https://agilebrain.com/homecare.

Home Care Heroes and Day Service Stars is produced and sponsored by Ankota - If you provide services that enable older or disabled people to continue living at home , Ankota can provide you the software to successfully run your agency.. Visit us at https://www.ankota.com.