Why Higher Rates Don’t Always Mean Higher Revenue (Jesse Walters)

There’s more to private pay rates than most people think. Jesse Walters, CEO of Hillendale Home Care, shares what it’s like to operate as both a low-cost provider and a premium provider—and the challenges that come with each. Jesse walks through acquiring Hillendale, scaling the business by 600% in just three years, and how pricing decisions impacted competition, staffing, and continuity of care along the way. He also discusses opening multiple de novo offices in his California market—by the way, de novo means starting from the beginning—and what that taught him about rates as a long-term strategy, not just a short-term revenue lever.

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min

Feb 4, 2026

Why Higher Rates Don’t Always Mean Higher Revenue (Jesse Walters)

Miriam Allred (00:10)
Welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm happy to be here. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. Hope everyone else is doing good and feeling good this week. Today in the lab, I am joined by Jesse Walters, the CEO of Hillendale Home Care. Jesse, welcome and thanks for being here.

Jesse Walters (00:26)
Thanks for having me, Miriam. It's great to see you. I think it's been two or three years.

Miriam Allred (00:30)
been a minute, but here we are back together. It's good to see you as well. How are you doing? How are you feeling about everything?

Jesse Walters (00:38)
Everything's a big question. think that ⁓ I try to ignore everything except for ⁓ the things I can control. Families, families healthy. ⁓ I get to work with incredible, incredibly talented people every day and get to try to create the company that I've always wanted to work for.

Miriam Allred (00:58)
Amazing. For those that don't know you, let's start with your background. Talk a little bit about your experience in home care.

Jesse Walters (01:06)
So I started when I was ⁓ in college, I was a caregiver in college working with, I remember an older gentleman with Alzheimer's and a young kid with learning disabilities and with very little direction reflect on that period of time as I could have been such a better caregiver ⁓ to people. And then had an opportunity through a mentor of mine.

who had been opening up a number of home care companies in Las Vegas. And I actually dropped out of Boise State and went and lived in his garage for about six months to learn the home care industry. I think it was about 21 at the time and have been in the industry, focused on it ever since. A lot of Medicaid in the early days, which was super challenging and then moved to.

Walnut Creek, California to open up a new home care location for the company. And that was where I learned how to work in the private pay market, which was trial by fire. I felt like I was running for office for that first year hugging, ⁓ shaking hands, kissing babies. But it was it was a blessing. And then right around 2011, I

Miriam Allred (02:17)
Yeah.

Jesse Walters (02:27)
came across this fairly small unknown company called Home Care Assistance, had the opportunity to meet with Jim and Kathy, the founders of Home Care Assistance, and joined ⁓ the company and worked there for about 12 years or so, working within the Bay Area primarily, and then eventually ⁓ leading the kind of Pacific Northwest through

or a lot of organic growth, acquisitions, de novos. was one of the most incredible experiences in my career. And then left in 2022 after the kind of rebrand and now they're called the Key and had an opportunity to acquire Hillendale Home Care. Love to, yeah.

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Miriam Allred (03:17)
Yeah, what did you think you were going to do for your career? mean, pre that like caregiving experience in college, in and around college, what did you think you were going to be doing?

Jesse Walters (03:29)
I had no idea. ⁓ Sometimes I laugh, I was like the firstborn child to very young parents and ⁓ everything was an adventure because we never had a plan. ⁓ And so, you know, I looked, knew that and my mentor said it to me best one day, he said, Jesse, you love helping people. You're interested in exploring businesses. ⁓ When you're ready, come on down.

And so was kind of that intersection of really interesting challenges or chess of business. And when you perform exceptionally well, you're actually improving everybody's lives, right? Caregivers, clients, et cetera. So that's been the fuel for the last 23 years now is how do we get better? How do I get better? How do I support our teams to...see the industry differently or just even optimize what we're doing today.

Miriam Allred (04:33)
And now you can't probably imagine it any other way. The last like, you know, 15 years, 20 years, it's like this is your life. Home care is your life has become your identity. A big part of your identity, would you say?

Jesse Walters (04:38)

I, fortunately I had, yeah, yes, in many ways ⁓ it's a part of my identity. I've had enough heartbreak over time to make sure that ⁓ this identity is not the only one that I operate under. And if my identity is challenging my colleagues in the industry to improve their service, right?

to optimize a client experience, then that's the identity I really want.

Miriam Allred (05:16)
Let's talk about acquiring Hillendale So you said left home care assistance, key 2022, maybe took a little hiatus. I think you've told me before you were like considering retirement, you your wife was working like, you know, maybe press pause for a minute, but then what lit you up to go out and seek out a home care company to acquire?

Jesse Walters (05:37)
That's a great, ⁓ I love that story.

It was the first time in my life that I'd ever had both time and money. I've never had one of those two ⁓ at the same time. So I was really looking forward to be a semi-retired stay-at-home dad for, was May, so I was looking forward to the summer and just kind of catching my breath after a pretty significant.

run, pretty significant 10 year run. went from, I mean, over the period that I was there, we went from maybe 20, 25 million a year to north of 700 million a year. ⁓ And it was just this incredible experience. And so I was looking to hang out with the kids. ⁓ And then about four to six weeks later, a really talented

woman that I absolutely adore in the industry, we'd worked together for quite a while, she called me and expressed how frustrated she was with the company that she was at at the time and said, listen, if you can find something to acquire, I'm in, right? I want to be a partner, but I'm in. And she's an extremely talented sales leader, ⁓ market mover, industry leader.

person, right? I love her to death. And so that was four to six weeks after I was supposed to be semi-retired and a stay-at-home dad. And there was one company ⁓ over the years that we hadn't acquired that had a fantastic reputation in the marketplace and was run by a really thoughtful ⁓ nurse named Bridget.

And so I, there was the one company, if I could acquire one, I was like, well, let's see if, know, what Bridget's up to. So I actually guessed her email address. I couldn't find her exact email address. And so just guessed it, sent an email and said, hey, this is who I am. This is what I'm about. Love to see if you're exploring an exit at some point in the future. Probably a similar email that everybody gets all the time. I know I do.

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About Hillendale

Hillendale Home Care provides trusted, relationship-based in-home care for older adults throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, serving Contra Costa, Alameda, Sonoma, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties. The agency offers personalized support designed to help seniors live safely and comfortably at home, including companionship, personal care, dementia care, and assistance with daily living. Hillendale is known for its thoughtful caregiver matching, high standards of care, and deep commitment to the local communities it serves.