I was skeptical about whether "Virtual Care" would be a good service for home care agencies, but I was proven wrong.  In summary, this is a great way to differentiate your agency and to add a high-margin service. 

Our guest is Stephan Habermeyer who is the CEO at Calico.Care. 

Here are some highlights of what we learned:

• Virtual Care provides a way to monitor the well-being of home care clients throughout the day and night.
• Some agencies are using this for the classic scenario where the family wants home care for their mom, but the mom is not ready. They combine the virtual care with visits (live and/or virtual) from a care coordinator (at a high charge) and usually within a short time, the client agrees to add caregiver hours.
• The margins are high. As an example, some agencies are charging $1/hour for virtual care ($720 a month) and the cost is generally $200. Other agencies are charging $1,000/month or more.
• Another way that agencies are deploying the service is to add virtual care to a 30 or 40 hour a week client.
• The basic system comes with motion sensors and an Amazon Alexa. Plus the system comes with its own internet (no need to connect to wifi)
• Everything comes in a preconfigured kit and the devices are labeled, plus they walk the home care agency through it on facetime.  All they need to do is plug in two plugs and stick the sensors on the wall. Batteries will need to be replaced in around 2 years (but by that time, you'll have made $15,000.
• The family gets to monitor their own loved one with an app, but agencies are also providing a monitoring service by paying overnight caregivers an extra fee for monitoring.

Bottom line, this looks like a great way to add high-margin revenue and to differentiate your service from competitors.

To learn more about the solution, go to the website https://www.calico.care/ or email them at [email protected]. 

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.