Home Care Owner FAQs
We've brought together a team of educators and home care experts to answer the burning questions that you and every home care owner will ask at some point.
Marissa Snook President/CEO of corecubed care marketing
Ilya Vakhutinsky Careswitch CEO, home health aide's son, Forbes 30 Under 30, caregiver advocate
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion & HCAOA board member
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Jeff Wiberg President of the Home Care Association of America board and CEO of Family Resource Home Care
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Debbie Miller Former pharma sales rep who built a $10M home care company and founded 52 Weeks Marketing
Debbie Miller Former pharma sales rep who built a $10M home care company and founded 52 Weeks Marketing
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion & HCAOA board member
Mark Johnson EA specializing in home care agencies
Jason Chagnon CEO of Home Care Marketing Pros; digital marketing consultant to senior care businesses
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Becki Harrington-Davis Senior Content Marketing Manager at CareAcademy
Sabrina Sattler Account Executive at Careswitch, home care agency advisor specializing in startup success and longevity
Ilya Vakhutinsky Careswitch CEO, home health aide's son, Forbes 30 Under 30, caregiver advocate
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Rachel Gartner Former home care recruiter who was so successful that she founded her own recruitment firm (Carework)
Gregg Mazza Founded a home care agency, almost ran out of capital after two years, figured things out and scaled past $5M
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion & HCAOA board member
Erica Horner Home care sales consultant & project manager at corecubed
Erica Horner Home care sales consultant & project manager at corecubed
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion & HCAOA board member
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Angelo Spinola Home health, home care and hospice chair at Polsinelli
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Adam Corcoran Director of Business Development at Golden Care, owner of Home Care Flyers, helped build a multimillion dollar agency from the ground up
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Greg Coopman President at SeniorCareCX
Miriam Allred Head of Partnerships @Careswitch, former host of Vision: The Home Care Leaders Podcast
Brian Cottone Jr. Benefits expert at VItable Health
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Jeremy Fuller Managing Director of Grow Home Care Marketing; website, SEO, and digital marketing expert
Julio Briones Home care consultant specializing in helping 7-figure home care agencies grow
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
What roles should I hire for in my home care agency's office staff and when should I hire them?
I could give the cop-out answer by saying it depends on the circumstances of every agency and I’d be right, but we’re not here for cop-out answers. :)
While it does depend on the circumstances of every agency, we interviewed Brett Ringold, an experienced agency administrator in Pennsylvania, to get the dirty details on exactly when and why he hired for each role, and what he’d do differently if he went back.
Brett is the VP at A Long Term Companion, an agency he runs alongside Michele Kilstein, his mother. They’ve been in business since 2010 and are handling over 6000 weekly billable hours.
Here’s how we’ll break this down:
- Eight key roles in a home care agency
- What division of roles might look like with only two administrative staff
- When A Long Term Companion hired each role and what prompted the hire
- What ALTC’s org chart looks like today
Eight key office staff roles in a home care agency
A Long Term Companion (ALTC) has hired eight roles over the years:
- Director of Operations—the administrator or executive. Typically this is filled by the owner until they reach a point where they hand off management of daily operations.
- Sales/Marketing—including the intake process, business development, community relations, and either handling consumer-focused marketing (like Google Ads) or being the liaison to a marketing agency that handles it.
- People—human resources and recruiting.
- Wellness—nursing.
- Quality management—Brett identifies this function as focusing on using feedback and data, typically from surveys, to identify where quality of care can be improved
- Scheduling
- Billing and payroll
- On-call
Early on, it’s helpful to view these as distinct hats that you’ll wear. It’s understood that no startup home care agency will have eight staff members to individually fill each of these rolls, but it’s helpful to think of them independently as it’ll help you to focus on each one more intentionally.
Dividing roles between two admin staff
Early on, your org chart will probably look less like an org chart and more like a Venn diagram that separates roles/duties between two or three people at max.
While the Venn Diagram of your agency’s responsibilities will obviously depend on the strengths that you and your employees bring to the table, here’s how A Long Term Companion split up the roles early on:
In my experience, this is a fairly logical/typical breakdown of roles with an agency that has two admin employees.
When A Long Term Companion hired each role and what prompted the hire
Here’s the general overview of their growth and hiring timeline:
One of the earliest roles to hire for is sales and marketing; Brett discusses hiring for sales and marketing essentially when two things happened: 1) they came across the right person whose skillset and local network fit their needs, and 2) they reached the point where Michele, who was filling the marketing role, was simply needed more urgently in other parts of the business.
A few related pieces that might help you plan future hiring decisions:
When to hire a marketer, according to the sales and marketing experts at corecubed (includes benchmark of revenue and billable hours)
What ALTC’s org chart looks like today
In case you’re wondering, these screenshots come from Brett’s presentation on Careswitch’s Home Care Success Summit in November 2022.
Hope this was helpful!
A couple quick asks if this was useful to you:
- Forward this on to anyone else who might benefit
- Check out the rest of our Frequently Asked Questions of Home Care and see what else is useful to you
- Check out Careswitch if you want super-intuitive home care software you can use for free
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