How Caregivers of America Rebuilt Operations Around the Client Journey (Jenni Scherer)

After six home care companies merged, Caregivers of America was left with six ways of doing things, costly process gaps, and no clear ownership of the full client journey. Regional Administrator Jenni Scherer explains how the company rebuilt operations around five stages of the client journey: FirstTake, InTake, UpTake, CareTake, and ReTake. She breaks down the touch-points behind the model, including an in-home visit that converts close to 99% of prospects, five coordinator calls during the first 30 days, and regular in-person visits for VIP clients receiving 30 or more hours of care each week. Jenni also shares why the journey shouldn’t end at discharge: returning former clients have become Caregivers of America’s second-largest referral source, followed by referrals from clients’ families and friends.

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min

Sep 1, 2026

How Caregivers of America Rebuilt Operations Around the Client Journey (Jenni Scherer)

Miriam Allred (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Ulred. I am super excited for today's session. I'm sitting across from Jenni Shearer, the regional administrator at Caregivers of America, based in Boca Ratone, Florida. Jenni, welcome to the show.

Jenni Scherer (00:17)
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here and be here with you.

Miriam Allred (00:22)
Likewise, for those that don't know, Jenni is a part of my leadership group called Lab Partners. And what she what we're gonna cover today, she shared with me a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, I absolutely have to interview you about this. This is exactly the meat that I'm always out on the hunt for. And so you just served it up to me on a platter, and now we get to cover it and and share some really incredible things that you all have done as a business over the last few years to adapt to this new model, and you're gonna kind of walk us through it, which is really exciting. So

Before we do that, Jenni, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell everyone a little bit about your background and your experience in home care.

Jenni Scherer (00:56)
Yes. So in nineteen ninety-eight, my husband and I relocated to Southeast Florida, where the iguanas roam freely down here. And the we relocated and I needed to find a job very quickly. so I reached out to a headhunter and I was fortunate enough to be able to interview with the owners of Caregivers of America at the time, and I was offered a position as the intake coordinator.

the same day. And home care is a natural fit for me. I grew up in a family culture where service and serving the elderly was very much a part of our family culture. And with my background working in a multi-specialty physician practice, I had a good foundation for what I was going to learn in home care.

I have learned so much about the business, about operations, about the teams, about our clients, working to my current role of regional administrator. And I love what I do. I love the industry. I believe in it. I truly am passionate about helping our clients and meeting them where they are. And I love getting to know the heroic caregivers that work for us every day.

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Miriam Allred (02:10)
Yeah, so you've been doing this for like twenty five plus years, and I love

Jenni Scherer (02:14)
Yes.

Miriam Allred (02:14)
to ask really tenured people like you that have been doing this for so long, like home care has changed, the industry has changed, the workforce has changed, so much has changed, but looking back and this is a loaded question, like has it changed more or less than you would have anticipated?

Jenni Scherer (02:31)
I you know, I I was very young. I was a 23 year old. looking back, I was just trying to absorb as much as I could and learn about the business. So back then I don't think I really had a a concept of what change looked like. I will say it's changed more than I than I thought it would quickly because of technology. you know, we had massive filing cabinets and

paper everywhere and and today as far as home care it we're able to do our job more efficiently and and faster and service and be more efficient as a result of the technology. The the model itself though, we still help our clients, we still refer the caregivers that are capable of helping. So, you know, that piece will never change in until we have robots that are waiting in our lobby to be deployed.

Miriam Allred (03:22)
Yeah. You're also in Florida, which is a really saturated market for all the obvious reasons.

Jenni Scherer (03:25)
Yes. Yeah.

Miriam Allred (03:28)
Do you feel like in that regard you have seen just masses of competition and other agencies flood your area?

Jenni Scherer (03:31)
I yes. That is true. That has changed. We've seen a lot more in many areas there's a moratorium on licenses. So that has changed. we have more, believe it or not. I think the consumers, there are more adult children that are reaching out for care for their loved ones. They they recognize the need is there.

So that has changed a little bit more, I I would say, with our new clients calling in. But definitely the saturation, there are a lot of caregivers in the state of Florida too. so we definitely there's not a shortage of caregivers available. Whereas I would say in ninety eight, early two thousand, certain

regions in our licensed area were a little bit more challenging to get a caregiver to to drive, but now with the population changing, yeah, that's also been a little bit of a change. Mm-hmm.

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