Miriam Allred (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. It's great to be back with you this week. Hope everyone is doing well. Today in the lab, I am joined by Debbie Miller, the owner of Senior Helpers in Nashville, Tennessee, and also the founder of 52 Weeks Marketing and Helper Heroes. Debbie, welcome back to the lab.
Debbie Miller (00:18)
Thank you, Miriam. It's great to be with you.
Miriam Allred (00:21)
I think you might be my first repeat guest on this show actually and there's just too many good things for us to talk about. So why not? So I want to introduce you in the way that I introduce you to other people, which is she talks the talk and she walks the walk. You are one of the sharpest operators that I know and also one of the most tactical speakers that I know. And that is a dual accomplishment because oftentimes people are one and maybe not the other.
Debbie Miller (00:29)
Glad to be here.
Miriam Allred (00:49)
There's only a handful of people that I truly believe are both and you are one of them. So I absolutely love talking to you.
Debbie Miller (00:56)
Thank you, Miriam. I appreciate that.
Miriam Allred (00:59)
I think most people know you, but maybe in your own words, if you can even summarize your background, your history, and really just where you're at today and why you're there, what would you tell people?
Debbie Miller (01:11)
Well, first and foremost, I am a home care operator. Just like most of the people that are listening today, I've been doing this for 18 years. Started from scratch, we now have well over 500 caregivers. And so it's been, it's definitely been a life long journey. And, but before that I was in pharmaceutical marketing, which has really helped me to developed the 52 weeks model of course, which is something that we still use to this day to continue to grow our business. And it's through the hands-on experience of running an agency where we've had the opportunity to see gaps, real needs for other agency owners and have been able to bring solutions to help them because we've kind of been through it ourselves.
And so, you know, GUIDE is just one other opportunity where I had to figure it out and created a model that we can now replicate for other agency owners to help them really capitalize on it. So being in the grind and doing this on a daily basis has helped us create the solutions that we have over time. Even Helper Heroes is another one. We had to use virtual assistants. I've got eight in my operation. And so now we've scaled that. So it's all about just figuring it out and then scaling it across the country.
Miriam Allred (02:40)
I absolutely love it. You're in the trenches right alongside of everyone and you see the problem and you're just a savvy businesswoman. You see a problem, you solve it and then you replicate it and scale it for other people and I just think that's really incredible. let's talk about GUIDE. I think I told you I talked about this a couple of weeks ago with another guest and the attention on this program is massive. The program is two years old at this point but I think more and more people are getting on the bandwagon. They're learning about it, understanding it.
But I think what's still really lacking is the implementation and the execution. A lot of people are just sitting back waiting for referrals and wondering, what's going on and what they need to actually do about this. And that's where I wanted to have you on because you've literally gone through this process the last six to eight months and are doing something about it and seeing massive results and other people need to understand why they can't just be sitting back at this point. So again, I think most people understand what the program is, but in your own words, let's just kind of highlight the key points of what the program is and why this opportunity is huge for home care.
Debbie Miller (03:37)
For sure. And again, to your point, we actually started in 2024, as soon as the program launched. I was really excited about it. And it took us a minute to really wrap our head around the program. It really is a comprehensive program. A lot of people forget that. And we think we're just kind of waiting around for the referrals for respite care to come in. But if we can actually...
be out there educating the community about this very comprehensive care management model. So CMS, for the first time ever, has really put an emphasis around supporting the family caregiver. And that's what this program is all about. We've got somewhere between 35 and 50 million family caregivers out there, and they are very heavily burdened and stressed. And so this program was really designed to give them the support they need because God forbid they don't do this job.
I mean, the whole house of cards come crumbling down if these family caregivers aren't providing this assistance to their family members. So the program itself is, there's several components to it. There's the comprehensive assessment and care plan, the caregiver training and education, care navigation and coordination, 24-7 access to a support line, and then the icing on the cake is up to $2,500 a year in respite care.
which is where the home care providers come in, right? This is the piece that we can partner and provide to these family caregivers. The whole comprehensive program, think about it as it's sort of similar to chronic care management model, if people are familiar with that. But this whole program, unlike chronic care where there's still co-pays, this is completely free. People can keep their primary care doctor, but this program is,
managed and it's there. It's a whole new layer of support that's never been available. And it's an incredible opportunity for home care providers, right? Because we can provide the respite care. So just as a reminder, those who are eligible to take advantage of the program are patients who have been diagnosed or have a suspected diagnosis. They do have to have traditional Medicare.
and be living in the community. And here's an interesting part about that. They can be living in a home, you know, in a neighborhood. They can be living in an independent living community, assisted living community, and even memory care. And they do need to have a family caregiver or someone that can help drive this process. So those are the key criteria. Those who cannot participate is anyone that is currently enrolled in hospice.
or a PACE program or any other special needs program. They cannot be a Medicare Advantage enrolling and they cannot live in a skilled nursing facility. All right, so those are the folks that unfortunately are not eligible. Now.
