Care Across America
"Care Across America, an Approved Senior Network® Podcast"—your go-to source for engaging conversations and practical insights from home care and senior care experts across the United States. Each episode will spotlight industry professionals, and their referral networks, sharing impactful stories, proven strategies, and innovative solutions in senior care. This podcast is perfect for professionals, adult children of aging parents, and family members struggling with senior care choices and care.
Care Across America
Revolutionizing Home Care: The Future is Now- with Angel Abrego
Angel Abrego is transforming home healthcare with a revolutionary approach that combines hands-on care with cutting-edge technology. As the founder of Elite Premier Nursing Services, Elite Infusion Services, and Elite VCM, Angel has built a comprehensive healthcare ecosystem that serves clients across South Florida with everything from traditional caregiving to holistic IV therapies and innovative virtual monitoring.
What makes Angel's approach truly groundbreaking is his use of non-invasive AI technology that can detect subtle changes in clients' health and behavior patterns without compromising their privacy. Unlike camera-based monitoring systems that many families resort to, his smart home technology can identify potential health issues like UTIs or pneumonia before they become emergencies, while preserving seniors' dignity and independence. "When I get to that age, I don't want somebody videotaping me," Angel explains, highlighting the compassionate thinking behind his tech solutions.
Angel's journey began at just 18 years old when he started working as a caregiver despite initially wanting to be a doctor rather than following his mother and grandmother into nursing. By 26, he had founded his own agency and was on his way to building what is now a multi-faceted healthcare organization serving clients from young adults to seniors. His core belief that "the future of healthcare is in the home" drives everything from his innovative IV therapy services to his pioneering approach to short-shift care.
The "Uberization of caregiving" is another area where Angel stays ahead of industry trends. Recognizing that today's clients often prefer on-demand services rather than traditional 24/7 care, he's developed a successful model for providing quality short-shift care by specifically recruiting caregivers seeking flexible hours and charging premium rates that make these arrangements sustainable. When combined with his virtual monitoring services, clients can receive just one or two hours of in-person care daily while enjoying 24-hour oversight at half the price of round-the-clock caregivers.
Whether you're exploring options for aging in place, seeking preventative wellness treatments, or looking for innovative care solutions that adapt to your family's unique needs, Angel's visionary approach to healthcare shows us what's possible when compassionate care meets cutting-edge technology.
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My name is Angel Abrego. I'm the owner of Elite Premier Nursing Services, elite Infusion Services and Elite VCM. We have been in business for about 11 years now. We cover South Florida, palm Beach County, treasure Coast, naples up to Sarasota.
Speaker 2:Sounds to me like you're a busy guy. Oh yeah, floran, I appreciate you taking the time to educate all of us about what you do and where you're located, so that people know where they can go to get services in South Florida. So why don't you tell us what got you started in the home care industry?
Speaker 1:I started to be honest with you ever since I was a child, actually since I was about 14 years old. I wanted to be a doctor, but my mother was a nurse and my grandmother was a nurse. So by trade, I naturally was rebellious against that and said I had no business wanting to be a nurse. I wanted to be a doctor. But, life being what it is, I actually was always geared towards nursing.
Speaker 1:When I got my nursing degree, actually right out of high school, I went to a vocational prep school which had pre-med and nursing as specialties. So I got that right out of high school, started working as a nurse right at 18 years old. I started actually as a caregiver because some agencies were nervous about putting an 18-year-old nurse on the floor. So I started as a caregiver for about a year until they transitioned me into a nurse. I started working as a nurse. Then I opened up my own care management company and worked that privately for a couple of years before I launched my agency and was actually one of the youngest in the state history in Florida at the age of 26.
Speaker 1:Opened my private duty agency, which has now morphed into a healthcare ecosystem of what I am building. So my passion has always been to revolutionize healthcare. It is the foundation of our company and we have done that ever since. We've been around for 11 years now. So we specialize in private duty, home health, medicare, medicaid, and for the last three years have been doing hospital at home, virtual hospital at home, and now we're getting ready to launch our national program, which is virtual care management and taking that nationwide.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is a tremendous amount of work on your part and such a great. I love it that you're in all the places so people can come to you for anything, and you got it covered. Maybe hospice.
Speaker 1:That's in the future. That's in the future. My main thing is. The future of healthcare is in the home. I've been bedside and private my whole life, so me knowing what my clients want, what they need, the complexities of what the industry is. It is not like every other space. It is very unique and there's a lot of things that we can do in the home that now people are starting to wake up to and realize like we can do the IV infusions.
Speaker 1:We were able to do those in the home that now people are starting to wake up to and realize like we can do the IV infusions. We were able to do those in the homes for so many years now. Now it's starting to take off. Holistic IVs is something that we do as well around here. Me, the way I tell people I pretty much push the care continuum forward from getting clients that are younger age 18, 19, 20 years old and some of my seniors that do a lot of these vitamins that they got to take. The bulk of the medications that they take are vitamins. I'm like, hey, I can infuse you with two of these vitamin IV infusions twice a month and I'm going to get you 100% purity versus you taking those vitamins on a daily basis and trying to wolf down horse-sized multivitamins.
Speaker 2:Okay, so do you infuse NAD? Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:So do you infuse NAD? Absolutely, we're actually in the forefront of that, working with a detox company. About six, seven years ago we got introduced to NAD when it was actually specialized and you actually had to go to a course in California in order to learn how to do that. So we were lucky enough to work through that vicariously through a detox company. We got put onto it, we started learning it and then helping other people. Now it's everywhere now. Now you can just get the injections. I'm a huge proponent. As a nurse, I tell everybody always opt for infusion and injectables as much as possible, because a lot of people don't take into account the liver bypass aspect of taking oral medications.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, that's crazy and so awesome and I'm glad to hear that the IV infusions aren't just IV antibiotics and things like that. It's definitely you're doing the preemptive stuff, helping people avoid all of these diseases and maybe some hangovers in South Florida in South Florida.
Speaker 1:I look at it as a large research of my own. If I'm getting clients in their 20s and 30s, if they regularly take these vitamin infusions by the time they turn 70 or 80, or we all do together at the same time, I'm curious to see how we end up in terms of the health spectrum and whatnot by the time we get to that age.
Speaker 2:That is going to be a great study to, at least, even if it's just up here. Oh, I've known that girl since she was 20 years old and she's looking pretty good still for 50, 60 years old.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah, you factor in peptides too. It's a whole nother game changer.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So do you do all this stuff yourself, just out of curiosity?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. The whole of my company, my team, have an amazing team behind me. Everybody sees us out and about. We were known for traveling.
Speaker 2:We travel with a large group wherever we go. Yeah, okay, so you have covered the entire gamut. Now I'm going to guess. Oh, let me ask you this. I don't, I'm not going to guess at it. What about pediatric? That's medical care.
Speaker 1:So that aspect we have explored it. My chief growth officer has mentioned that several times. We're gearing in that direction a little bit. I'm not really looking to the full fledged on that, just a personal thing.
Speaker 1:I've worked always with adults and geriatrics. But in terms of our program, vcm virtual care management it's a lot of hospital at home. So we're bringing this at home and then taking it into not just acute care but high acuity care and being able to continue that care afterwards once they get home from discharge. So our program I have a team of nurses. We virtually manage patients once they get home and get discharged from the hospital so we can set them up. On cardiac monitoring, so we have a tele unit for that we do at home. We do ECG monitoring at home as well as the regular vitals things like that. But we take it a step further in the fact that we actually bridge the gap right so we can do telehealth conferencing through there.
Speaker 1:Telenursing for us is huge is the future. So pediatrics actually plays a really big game, a big piece of that in the future as well, because we have certain things that we can set up, like skin temperature monitor tags that we put on patients, so we can get that blood pressure cuffs. The neonatal ones are super, super small. For me it's a personal thing for me. I want to make sure that I'm able to take care of everybody, but at the same time I know that I can't take care of everybody. That's just the nurse in me. We just don't want to back down. But pediatrics is a whole new frontier. I see that taking off a lot in our industry now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely. But let's just think about this You're in the most competitive market in the United States, maybe second only to Manhattan. But pretty much you guys are for South Florida as far as seniors and folks that are there that are retired and folks of all ages, of course, but our senior population obviously loves to live in Florida when they retire or their snowbirds going back and forth, so you have a huge population to serve. You're in the most competitive market in the nation and you've done extremely well in the nation and you've done extremely well and being able to adequately serve all of your non-medical clients, as well as some that need some medical assistance on the adult side. I think that's a week that's a lot and you are not very old.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. It's a lot. And we enjoy the challenge though, because, like I said, everybody that works here we have the same vision. I don't hire people here just to hire bodies. We hire people that align with the vision as well as an owner like where can I take you on your career? What is it that you're trying to get to, and how does that fit into our big picture of where we're headed? The virtual nursing, tele-wound care, teletherapies at home, people that qualify for that, things that's the next frontier for us and that's what we've been able to specialize. So when people tell me I'm in a competitive market, I'm like nobody has what I have built, nobody has what I am building. They're going to catch up in the next couple of years, but by the time I've already, I'm already three years in the game.
Speaker 2:So Great, that is a great attitude to have and what a great business. Mantra Just keep going. If it's coming our way, keep adding it on. And that is so. Maybe an adult child of an aging parent and they're looking for care and they call the office. What can somebody expect when the person at your office answers that phone? What?
Speaker 1:happens. So once if a person calls us, the first thing we're trying to find out is number one, and I always call these because my team knows we call them the discovery call, right. So I tell them like what is it that the client is looking for, right? One thing where I feel most agencies fail at, because, like my right hand, kathy will tell you we have a goulash of services, so it's like we have something for everybody. But my big thing is I tell them make sure you fit them in with the right product. So a lot of times they will call you thinking I just want a caregiver. Sometimes it's beyond that they might need a nurse at this point, right. Other ones are like I want to start to explore this option for the future for my mom, because we're trying to decide and plan ahead Are we going to do ALF? Are we going to do home care? What's the cost? Look like.
Speaker 1:A lot of times I get clients that call me and they're like, hey, you're like I want to get my mom started. We just want to do one or two days. Like we just want to slowly transition her, which you'll see that a lot in our space right now the short care model is huge a lot because of financial issues and things like that with the country, which is why things like our virtual care management program is so massive. I tell people we can start your mom in just a couple of hours with in-person and then we remote monitor 24-7. So we have things like AI audio care pilots that listen to your mom in the house for conditional changes. We have a lot of AI tracking in the home. So a lot of this stuff scares people sometimes when I tell them. But it's actually really amazing to be able to say your mom's at home she maybe is resistant to the care, right, but for my system to go in and I smart home your home and I can say hey, mom says she doesn't get up at night, but we noticed she gets up between the hours of two and six every single morning and that's where her falls tend to happen, like she's fallen but she's gotten herself up a couple times now. So it's a one slip away from the big one so I'm able to help care, predict people now and tell them hey, mom's most action is between 2 and 6 am, so you may want to think about a night shift. Why don't we think about 11 pm to 7 am.
Speaker 1:You have help during the day or you're there during the day to start to help families formulate an actual plan, like everybody's done it in the past. We've all had the paper sheets that we go over and just say what does your day look like? But most of your clients call me like I just want somebody from nine to 12. Get my mom up, get a breakfast, get going, all right. So what happens outside of that? Nobody really plans for the future. So tell people let's look into that and say, ok, what happens when we're not here? What happens if you fall? What's the game plan?
Speaker 2:So it's amazing what you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, and you find out pretty fast.
Speaker 1:It is, but that's the beautiful thing about our technology also is the fact that it's non-invasive. So I'm not utilizing videos or anything like that. When I get to that age, I don't want somebody videotaping me. I won't feel comfortable. I know it's great for the kids and a lot of them are actually doing that right now kind of setting up rings, booby traps throughout the house. They set up ring cameras in every room and they watch their mom walk throughout the house. I'm like that's not a, it's not a good plan. I'm like if she falls, if you're asleep at 3 am, you'll hear the movement, but are you really going to wake up to that? It's a lot. So I tell them let's do this the right way, because with the amount of rings that they're paying for, you literally service and dome the whole home.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard that before I get it. I see how that might be a good, like ring cameras all over.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's rampant.
Speaker 2:It's rampant down here I can tell you every other day I'm running into that. It takes a lot of time to watch those videos, so something that actually can sense that. So what's happening is it's not video, but something in the house is sensing activity and perhaps a fall, and so it's not looking at the person, but it knows what regular behavior is after a while and it knows what irregular behavior is and it sends alerts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, correct Exactly. So like, for instance, if every day you tend to wake up between the hours of 5 am and 7 am, correct, and you were for some reason, this day you didn't there could be something going on. That kind of prompts my team. Unusual activity I'm contacting the person at home and I'm saying, hey, is everything okay? If they don't answer, then we assume something may have happened. Or if they do answer, they're saying they're just not feeling well. Other times they're getting up a lot during the middle of the night. Unusual activity they went to the bathroom six times last night.
Speaker 1:Are we looking at a potential UTI situation or is there something else gastrointestinally happening that we need to be jumping on in advance?
Speaker 1:A lot of times too, for the Alzheimer's and dementia clients.
Speaker 1:Historically and this is infamous, this is something I actually love so much about our technology is the fact that you have clients that may have Alzheimer's and dementia and family members might not be conscious to how bad it really is.
Speaker 1:So I get that all the time from children. Mom sleeps through the night, she doesn't get up, but then she may say the caregiver never showed up this morning at 7 am, when really we do have now the ability to say the person walked through the door at 7 am but mom's been up since 545 screaming for help, so she's confused on her time. It's not that the caregiver did not show up on time, it's that your mom's getting up two hours earlier than normal and confused. So this is what's really happening. So when you're able to give the children those metrics, it changes the entire dynamics of how we deliver care and, as well, being able to have that extra backup support for your caregivers and for your team, because forever if we got those kind of calls and we're like you're not showing up on time, he's now can verify you a little bit, but outside of that.
Speaker 2:It used to be like it's not working out. You got to go and get another caregiver in there. No, now you can say, okay, let's look at what's really going on, because we know we were there and that's nice, that's great, that's life-saving care and it's also, if you know, here we could talk about this all day. But from the medical perspective, you're reducing hospital readmissions a lot by being able to identify these problems. Like you said, if the person was up six times last night, they either have something going on with their tummy or they have something going on with their urinary system. They either have an infection or maybe their tummy's yucky or whatever. I have kids. Can you tell? Are we looking? Are they dehydrated now? Do they need antibiotics? What can we do to fix this before it becomes a bigger problem or something else happening that we need to know?
Speaker 1:about so absolutely. And then, like I said, like the AI audio aspect of what we do for me to be able to get a good listen in on what my clients have like their main complaints. I have clients sometimes that may say I can't sleep, I have difficulty sleeping, but they never report that. You know. When you call them and you're like, hey, is everything all right, how are you feeling? I'm feeling great. But then I got them on audio the whole week saying I had a horrible night last night. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. And then you're like, okay, I get this information, create a whole care plan.
Speaker 1:It allows my nurses to be very much proactive now and say, hey, we've got this situation, let's have this conversation, because they're not telling us to our face, but we hear it. We hear the tussling, rustling, all of those things. If they're dissatisfied about something, we can understand that, but it's only healthcare related things. We don't pick up regular conversation. You can sit there and talk about the Marlins or the Dallas Cowboys or whatever you want to talk about. We don't hear any of that. It's just if you're coughing, which is huge for me when it comes to pneumonia basis, because a lot of times a client might be drinking water and caregivers are infamous for saying they just choke when they're drinking water. The water went down the wrong way. I'm like, no, this is the development of something else. We need to get ahead of this, because they're going to end up with pneumonia. Then they're going to come home on hospice and you don't want that, yeah that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. You know what? My nurse radar goes off when I hear stuff like this. I love it and I hope that more people realize the value of having that AI and it does sound scary, I get it, but have something listening and monitoring the house just to know if things are okay or if something has changed. I hope when people really understand the value of that because I think they would be we have a lot more adult children who are very surprised at what's really going on at home and most of our seniors are going to say no, I'm fine, everything's great, because they don't want to be a burden to their kids, they don't want to be a burden to anyone else and they just they love their independence and value that. So they're going to say I'm fine, there's nothing wrong here, or it's just old age, but it's nice. What you've got going on here is amazing. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:And all right. So somebody calls. I'm going to rewind a little bit. Somebody calls, they get one of your folks on the phone and I guess a lot of listening is happening, and once you listen to their story and find out what's going on, then it's about putting them in the right service group and helping them with whatever types of care they might need.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and we do all that in person. I send my team out to the home because they're my first eyes and ears when they go into the home. To go into the home, they're able to see the dynamics of the home. I do not like doing sales or closing or any of those things on the phone, just because you wouldn't know what I got going on If I were to call a mechanic and we say this to a lot of our customers when they call and they want to get a price over the phone, I'm like, hey, if I call the mechanic right now and I tell him, hey, my car's going to do like how much, he's not going to give you the price. You know what I'm saying, because everybody that calls it, it's the the. It's not the truth right there when they call a couple of hours of care.
Speaker 1:She's fine, she does everything on her own.
Speaker 2:She sleeps all night, and then you get there and it's a whole different dynamic almost yeah yeah yeah, the noise of newt could mean fifteen hundred dollars worth of car damage, or it could mean five dollars it it could be a whole range of stuff. So, yeah, they got to look. So in-home assessments and conversations are really what it's all about. And so in-home assessment or conversation happens. And then how fast? I'm going to imagine pretty fast how fast could you get care started if somebody called today, not an emergency, but I would say like usually same day.
Speaker 1:I think the luckiest we've been is like within an hour. We got lucky, we have schedulers for that, but the luckiest been is about an hour. I would say everything's always same day. We just had a call yesterday where we had a facility that called us that needed a patient to be serviced the same night and it was four o'clock in the afternoon. We got in there by 7 pm. It all depends on how you structure your team, how you structure your scheduling and everything else like that, how fast you guys can really move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that takes a lot of organizational skill. Your schedulers have to be really good at what they do and really believe in the mission and vision of what you have set forth, because scheduling is one of the hardest jobs in this industry and if everybody's hard, it of the hardest jobs in this industry.
Speaker 1:And if everybody's, it is the hardest, I tell everybody it's just, you have to have it's all trial and error for everybody, because there's not one system that works for everybody. We've changed our scheduling style at least two times. We recently changed it about a year and a half ago, which everybody here was moaning and groaning and didn't want to do it. It's worked out for the best for us and it's a constant reevaluation of your systems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's rough, it's tough, but when you have a team that, from the top down, has the same belief system and the same vision and mission and values, then it becomes so much easier to do all of those things and get people scheduled. Let's talk about short shifts for a minute. Most home care agencies I've had a lot of these conversations lately but most home care agencies do not want to do short shifts because it's hard. It's hard to schedule them scheduling, it's hard on the caregivers. They want a full shift of hours, they want to work full time. They don't want to piecemeal it, but there are ways to put this together that works out nicely for everybody. So talk to me a little bit about short shift cares or short hours.
Speaker 1:So that is going to be the future of scheduling for home care. To be honest with you, just based off of what I told you in terms of the financial situation, the way the world is right now. But nobody really looks at the generational payer source, right? So the way every generation buys home care differently. So when we went through our World War II generation, there was whatever the cost is, 24-7, pampered and catered to. Now you're going into the next generation that went through the depression aspect of things and they don't spend on anything. If I'm not dying, I don't need it. That's the way that they bought. So look into the future, where we're at right. So the next generation will be more the Amazon generation, if you think. We want it when we want it and we want it now. We don't want to wait for it and we also don't want to have a situation where it won't be delivered. So, when it comes to the short shifts, I think, where companies failed and we were guilty of this three years ago, because I started working on this three years ago I tell everybody the gig economy is a serious thing and it's going to come.
Speaker 1:For the caregivers. You're looking at Uberization of caregivers. So, number one how do we target those kind of people? Most of us are doing it wrong. Most of us put the ads up looking just for general caregivers. How specific are you being in your ads? If I am targeting Uber people, the same way I'm targeting caregivers, right? I'm not going to put up full time jobs if I want them to drive Uber and then tell them you have the potential to be full time. You know what I'm saying? It's right. What it is.
Speaker 1:This is we're looking for people specifically, and a lot of those individuals are actually people that are in nursing schools, people that are medical assistants, that are picking up weekend gigs, or single mothers. They have time to drop the kids off in the morning at eight and then they have to pick up the children by two. So they have that small window where you know, and then dad might come home later in the afternoon and then they can take care of them from there and they can do another shift on the way from there and they can do another shift on the way, things like that for your college students that you know they work at night because they go to school during the day, or vice versa they go to school for a couple of hours in the daytime, then they have availability in the evenings to do things. So how you structure, that is key, right. So, for instance, with us, we actually charge a higher premium for those shorter shifts, right? Because of the fact that I have to pay an individual more than the normal rate to go out to do that one hour bath visit or the two hour visit, right? So number one, that's the key, one key part there.
Speaker 1:When I did this two or three years ago, we attempted this and I kept everything at a regular rate, even the charge and everything else like that, and it failed miserably because we did not have the manpower for it. I had caregivers that wanted eight hour, 12 hour shifts, trying to give them a full shift with a bunch of small hour clients. I said if we get eight one hour clients, that's the one, that's the one eight hour shift. We attempted that it was. It was an entire miracle round until we came up to where we're at now. So everybody knows what I'm infamous for testing and pushing, and testing and pushing till we find the right formula. Last year we discovered that formula and this year it's been working for us, fantastic.
Speaker 1:Like I said, we run the specific ads, people that are specifically looking for PRN type of shifts one hour to two hour to three hour kind of situations. Pricing comes into consideration when it comes to that. You obviously have to pay more for those short visits and if they want a consistent individual, you need to give us a consistent schedule and it has to be set up with a minimum. So for us, we have a minimum. It's hey, you got to meet our daily minimum and it has to be a consistent schedule, or else you fall into this program, which is a more flexible program, but you're not going to get consistency. If you're looking for consistency, you need consistent hours. So that's where a lot of those metrics go into.
Speaker 1:A lot of companies don't take that into consideration. I've actually talked to a lot of people about that. Actually, one of the things that I'm going to talk about at HCaF is about that situation. It's just it's there, it's coming, there's going to be a lot more clients. We're seeing that now, where I get a bunch of clients that call and they want these things. That's where the beauty of what we do with the short shifts and our virtual care management comes into play, because I'm not just giving them two hour care or one hour care. I'm giving them the hands on for one or two, but I'm giving them 24 hour coverage for half the price, so it's one of the most amazing things for them to be able to have extra eyes. I know they can't all afford it, so this is the best. Next thing that I can do for them is be able to have somebody listening on the other end to assist them in their time of need, when they need us.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay. So is there going to be an Instacart app for caregivers?
Speaker 1:There probably already is, oh, yeah, there's things out there that are coming over the roof and COVID was one of the things that advanced that and you have all the Silicon Valley's jumping into home care massively. They're all coming out with some kind of an app for something. So I think I saw Carecom coming out with something similar where you can get your caregiver direct. It's going to hurt agencies a lot, to be honest with you, those kind of things, just because when they're working like that. But what differentiates us is this Like I tell them, how much quality control do those people have over their program?
Speaker 1:Uber is one of the largest companies in the world when it comes to individuals being their own bosses and driving whenever they feel like it. But what is the quality? How do you control that quality If you don't know the person? You haven't talked to them. So that's why I think agencies will always be able to trump that aspect. It's just the simple fact that if you're going to call to complain to somebody, you're talking to Cindy. You're not talking to somebody in a 1-800 number in God knows what part of the world, and they don't know who this person is. They just know they've registered on the app.
Speaker 2:Yeah, getting a ride to the airport in an Uber is a lot different from someone helping your mom get a bath.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So they need to be background checked, they need to be established as a safe person before they walk into the house. So I can see where you're exactly right. But agencies like you who take the reins on this are actually doing the due diligence behind the scenes and taking on the pay and doing those things. I've always been, of course, more agency-centric as far as recommendations and not private caregiver. I'm always been, of course, more agency-centric as far as recommendations and not private caregiver. I'm not a private caregiver recommender only because of all the things that are. Potentially you want somebody behind the scenes that has done all of the steps necessary to make sure somebody's safe.
Speaker 1:Exactly, but that's also the beauty of our program. Like I said, the VCN part of what we do, even if they're not with us as a client and they have their own private caregivers. This is my way of making sure that things are being done the right way in the home, because we have our care managers and our RNs that are overseeing the care. The people that work in that house are interacting with us with what we need them to do for this client, so we're managing these cases and we're able to make sure that, although they don't have somebody in the home from our company, they do have bodies there we're able to assist, especially a lot of those people that just take care of their own loved ones.
Speaker 2:And so let's talk about payer sources. You take private pay clients. I bet you take long-term care insurance, do you do? Veterans benefits?
Speaker 1:Not yet. We do aid and attendance. We do that. We are in queue to be able to get in with the Veterans Association right now, but in our market yeah, in our market it's saturated, so it's hard for us to get in right now. I'm working on that, but we are getting there. But we also do Medicare Medicaid as well as Aetna and Care Lawn as well.
Speaker 2:Okay. And in Florida, can family members get paid to take care of their own? Yes, yes, okay, great. So you can manage all of that across the board, regardless of which payer source comes your way. It doesn't really matter. Great, that's awesome. You have absolutely done an amazing job. So for the folks in South Florida, we will make sure that all of your contact information is there. They can call, get more information and find out what it is they need. I thank you for being innovative and thinking forward, because we're going to need a lot more agencies like yours out there with multifaceted business models that can really pick it up. So, thank you.
