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
Cardinal Home Care: Building Trust in Northern Virginia Families
What happens when a home care agency owner launches his business just as a global pandemic begins? Meet Dale York, whose Cardinal Home Care agency in Northern Virginia has thrived despite starting under the most challenging circumstances imaginable.
Dale's journey into home care began in the mid-90s when he discovered his passion while working in an HR position at a local agency. "As soon as I started working in home care, I loved it," he shares. "It was something that I just felt was a natural fit." This natural fit eventually led him to establish Cardinal Home Care, which now serves clients throughout Northern Virginia with personalized care solutions.
Through illuminating client stories, Dale reveals the diverse ways home care supports families. From a young stroke survivor needing morning assistance to an elderly couple with dementia requiring daytime supervision to prevent falls, the agency tailors its approach to each situation. Perhaps most eye-opening is Dale's revelation that approximately 40% of their clients already live in senior communities. "When I first started in this industry, I thought: if you live in assisted living, why would you need home care?" he admits. The answer lies in the gap between institutional staffing and individual needs – private caregivers provide the one-on-one attention that prevents falls and maintains safety when community staff cannot be constantly present.
What sets Cardinal Home Care apart is their high-touch approach to client relationships. Dale personally meets with families, transparent service agreements are immediately shared, and caregivers are personally introduced during first visits. "I think the family just appreciates that someone cares," Dale reflects. "There's compassion, you're showing love, support, trust." This dedication extends to being available whenever clients need assistance – whether for a weekend, during a family caregiver's business trip, or following elective surgery.
Have you been considering home care but aren't sure what to expect? Listen to this conversation to understand how flexible, compassionate care can transform lives and provide peace of mind for families navigating the challenges of aging or managing health conditions.
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My name is Dale York. I'm the owner of Cardinal Home Care and we've been in business a little bit over five years. We are based in Fairfax, virginia, and our home care agency covers all of Northern Virginia.
Speaker 2:That's great, awesome, and that's a big territory in and of itself.
Speaker 1:It's huge.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about the reason why you got into this business. What was the catalyst and where did you come from before home care was in your life?
Speaker 1:So back in the mid-90s, after college, I got involved in the healthcare industry. I was managing practices, I worked in hospitals, and I really got tired of that setting so I was looking for something different. There was an ad for an HR position at a local home care agency. I had heard of home care but didn't know anything about it, so applied, got the job, and as soon as I started working in home care, I loved it. It was something that I just felt it was a natural fit. And I remember just thinking to myself like I think this is my future Working for a home care, something that I just felt it was a natural fit. And I remember just thinking to myself like I think this is my future Working for a home care agency, that I worked for some different assisted living communities and it really just solidified that fact that I want to own a home care agency.
Speaker 1:Right before COVID, like literally like a few months before COVID we were blessed by the state of Virginia. We were green light, thumbs up, let's move forward. And then COVID hits. Yeah, it's been a very interesting ride, but I have to say I've loved every day.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Oh, you know what they say if you love what you do, it's hardly work at all.
Speaker 1:So that's great 100% yeah.
Speaker 2:And what a time to come on board the beginning of COVID. Even the most stealthy, long-term, been around for years kind of home care agency had a really hard time during COVID To be starting this up. You hit the jackpot on hard.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you what happened just real quickly. There was a family that was in Arlington and they lived in a community and, if you remember, during COVID, literally everything was shut down, like you had to isolate in your rooms, and so she lived in an assisted living and the family had reached out and said I want to move my actually it was their sister into an apartment building to give her some more freedom. Could you provide a live-in caregiver? This way she has a larger apartment and the live-in could do things. And it was just. It was a better situation and that was one of the very first clients that we got. She was in her late fifties, had ALS, worked for the government, just a wonderful lady. But yeah, that was one of the very first clients that we got.
Speaker 2:Wow, and that's not an easy case either. So you have really you're like 200 years old in home care years.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's been what a blessing it is to own a home care agency and to help people, and maybe I should rephrase that by saying, just by owning a business and being able to help other people really like that's a huge blessing. I don't take that lightly at all. So when I had the opportunity to really get someone to help me get through the licensure process and the policies and the procedures, everything just fell into place and it just reconfirmed every day that this was where I needed to be.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's a great story and hopefully we won't have a whole lot more of that kind of stuff going on in our universe. But, having said that, there are people who are in crisis every single day or they feel like it's a crisis and they need answers. So when someone calls you, what are some of the most typical things you get asked? When consumers call Cardinal Home Care and are looking for help, Good question, okay.
Speaker 1:So when a family calls us, they typically top question is probably what kind of services do you guys offer? And other questions would be relating to schedules. This is what I need. Is that something that you guys could do? How much does it cost? Is this out of pocket? Is it private pay? Is it long-term care insurance? So actually, let me do this. Let me give you some examples of some of the families that we help and I think this will all come together.
Speaker 1:So we recently got a phone call from a family that lives in Arlington, virginia, and he's a young gentleman. He's not even 55 years old. He had a stroke, he lives at home with his wife and he was being discharged 12 pm. When the wife comes home, we help him get up in the morning. We help him get ready for the day, shower, go to the bathroom, get dressed, whatever he needs to do to get his day started meal preparation. So that would be one example. We have another family that we just started helping a couple of weeks ago. Both mom and dad actually have dementia. They live in Ashburn, virginia, and this family wanted to age in place. They've got a beautiful home and mom and dad are independent right. They can go to the bathroom and they can get changed. They're not bedbound by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1:The family's main concern is falling. They both have a history of falling. There's been some noncompliance with medication. So the idea behind helping this couple was could you guys come in and work 8 am to 8 pm seven days a week and just keep everything stable at home? Can you provide care if care is needed bathroom or shower, getting dressed, whatnot? Can you make sure that the meals are prepared? Can you make sure that if we have questions or if we have a concern, can you help us? And it was an added measure of security for the family and so we've been helping them now for a short period of time.
Speaker 1:And last week we got a call. It was for a family. And so we've been helping them now for a short period of time. And last week we got a call. It was for a family. They actually want to round the clock care. So their mom was just put under hospice care and the family during this very sensitive transitionary time. They don't want to play caregiver. They don't want to be sitting bedside changing their mom and giving their mom sponge baths, and so the caregiver is coming in and they're providing those services, making sure that she's being rotated, that she's maintaining that dignity that we all want. So those are just some examples of some of the hours and some of the services that we've been able to provide recently. With regards to insurance, long-term care insurance is typically fine. We have never been rejected from a long-term care insurance. Like Medicare, they're not covering, so your commercials are not going to cover. But if it's a long-term care insurance, I tell the families double check, but typically never a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of folks are confused about what Medicare covers and what it doesn't and unfortunately although I know there's been some talk about other things, but right now, pretty much for long-term care like this Medicare is not going to cover those services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:Private pay or long-term care insurance, but what a great variety of clients and a great variety of requests. So someone could get short-term care or just part-time care during the day, and then you have folks that go all the way to 24-hour care, I'm sure and so that's great that you were able to provide such a well-rounded set of services and whatever hours people need. Basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do your best and I think some of the challenges that we've had over the years are you've got the right. You got the children right, the people our age that are saying, hey, my mom, my dad, whomever, they need help, and there's that I don't need help, no one's going to help me. I've lived in this house for 47 years, right, and I get it right. There's a dignity there and I always tell my staff make sure you're doing everything and love, compassion and showing that dignity, and so we have to be mindful of that. And sometimes, if a family reaches out and we're meeting with them and the person that needs care is just, I'm not budging, I'm not doing this. Maybe sometimes, valerie is okay, can we compromise? Can we say maybe we'll come in a couple of days a week and we'll just come in for the morning hours. Let's help you get your day started and let's just give it a couple days next week. Let's try it, let's see what happens. It's not always, but you're not going to get 100%. Yes, but the family appreciates the fact that, okay, you're not trying to do a hard sale, you're not trying to force my mom or dad, it's. Let's compromise on something and, like you and I know sometimes just cracking the door a little bit, you've got a good caregiver. They're empathetic, they're there to help the individual. It just opens up that door to wow. You know what? Betty was really great with my mom and I think my mom is actually a little bit more receptive. So maybe we can try three days next week.
Speaker 1:And this is a very delicate industry. These are seniors. I think the average age that we help is mid-late 80s. They grew up in a different time, a different era. You just can't force something to happen. You have to be willing to give and take. I know some agencies have minimum hours per week. Maybe it's 20 hours a week and that's what we do think. We try to take the position of you may need that, you may need more, but if we can maybe meet you halfway and show you that we care and we're going to help and build some trust, maybe do we do a couple of weeks as a springboard for moving forward. So there's really no formula. You know this, you've been doing it for years. It's just you do the best you can, you try to build trust and you go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you guys are. You're right on track. Not everybody's ready for 24 hour care day one. It is a process of let's see how this works, let's ease into it. It really does help everyone concerned. Help everyone concerned, establish that trust, establish that nothing bad is going to happen here. This really is helpful to me and I'm sure along the way there have been families and seniors that have said we should have done this 10 years ago. We should have done this five years ago, two years ago. What a change it is now that we have somebody that can help us with the light laundry and the meal preparation or going to run errands. It's such a saving of energy and less worry for the adult children who live maybe a few towns over.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you serve. I know, tell me a little bit about this. People don't have to live in a house. You serve people in independent living, assisted living, all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually that's a great point. I would say roughly 40% or so of the clients that we help live in communities that are like assisted living communities, memory care communities, and when I first started in this industry, I'm like if you live in an assisted living, why in the world would you need home care? Like, why would you need private duty? That made no sense to me and I did a recent video about this and people don't understand that if your mom and dad, if someone moves into a memory care community or into an assisted living community, they check on your mom or dad every hour, two hours, whatever the state regulations are, but it doesn't mean that your mom or dad are not going to fall. It doesn't mean that things still are not going to happen. And we had a recent family that called us because the wife's husband he's 80 something years old has dementia. He kept falling and the community said look, this is really a safety issue. You need to bring in a home care agency to provide private duty so that when he gets up out of his bed or out of the chair he's not just getting up and falling. And a lot of people don't realize that there are times that you may have your mom or dad in a community and you still need home care, and you have to think about that, right, because again, it almost doesn't make sense, but from a safety perspective, they can only do so much, right.
Speaker 1:Assisted living communities there are so many in this area and they're wonderful. There are so many that are just absolutely marvelous, but they can only do so much, right. Assisted living communities there are so many in this area and they're wonderful. There are so many that are just absolutely marvelous, but they can only do so much. And so sometimes you get a family that's a little discouraged and they call and look, my mom's been falling a lot and they just need that extra help. So, yes, we do that and yeah, it's unfortunate, right, it's like you move into a community and but anyway. So yes, we do that.
Speaker 2:And I think that for especially for independent living communities, the longer you want your loved one to be able to stay there and the community wants them to stay, so sometimes having a little extra private duty help is really what extends the ability for them to stay there for as long as possible. Because, you're right, they don't. They're not staffed to be emergently checking on people every hour or maybe every hour they are. There's big gaps of time there because they're supposed to be independent or maybe assisted living. So I get it and that is a great point to let people know that you don't have to live in your own home to get home care. You might be in already or you might just need somebody to be around in memory care, for instance, to assist a little bit more where they're not. Their staff is busy with lots of folks in memory care and maybe your person needs a little bit more one-on-one time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're absolutely correct, and I think an important thing to understand about home care, at least with our home care agency, is so you can get it for a short amount of time and it's not something that is necessarily required to be ongoing. So we have a lady gosh. Her husband, I think, has ALS and she is maybe like 50. The wife still works, so when she travels for business she'll call us and get a live-in caregiver for three or four days. So it's just a little bit of that bridge like a respite. You don't necessarily have to have somebody for ever, six months or whatever it is, it can just be. Can you tide me over from this point in time to that point in time? And then we're good, we've done care for a weekend.
Speaker 1:A good friend of mine works at an assisted living and she said hey, I need help, family is going out of town. I think the dad was moving in, like on a Monday. So can you just help for the weekend? And we did it. So it's important to understand that every home care agency operates differently, but you can use it from a respite standpoint for a short amount of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do. I've known of folks who have. You know they have elective surgeries, so they have a knee replacement and a lot of times unless there's a fall a knee replacement something that you plan when you're going to have the surgery and you can have someone. I think transitioning from hospital to home is a great time to have some temporary home care and help you get over the hump, especially if there's not a lot of family around to help you pick up the medications and make sure you have a meal, and you know you're not able to get around right away when you have a knee surgery or a hip surgery, so it's nice to have somebody there who can do all the household stuff for you, and that is sometimes a planned event. So planning ahead for a hospitalization that's an elective surgery is a nice calling, and setting up that care for the day you come home is a wonderful way to get through that without having a lot of challenges and being readmitted.
Speaker 1:And I tell you something actually funny To your point we got a call maybe it's like a few months ago a lady was having a mommy makeover with a local plastic surgeon and I mean, we hadn't done one of those in years, but it was so nice. She reached out to us and she was super happy. But yeah, it's just like again, like these little short things that sometimes you might not think about, but she just she couldn't bend over, she couldn't, she was so sore, and so anyway, yes, I agree with your point a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's rough when you especially as we even at 55, having a surgery is a lot harder on on a 55 year old than it is on a 25 year old. I got to say oh, it is nice to have somebody help you out. When people call and they talk to you and you're able to answer their questions and that, and they want to start services give us sort of a hint at what the process looks like. They call, they say we need some care, and then what happens from there?
Speaker 1:Our agency is very transparent. One of the things that we do just off the bat whether they're inquiring for services and then what happens from there. Our agency is very transparent. One of the things that we do just off the bat whether they're inquiring for services or they definitely say no, we need services, we'll always send them the new client service agreement. So obviously, if they want to start ASAP, they need to look it over. But there's families that sometimes reach out because they're planning ahead. We'll email them the new client service agreement. Look, read through it. Any questions, call me, I can come over, we can talk about it, whatever. So I think having that immediate transparency I think puts people at ease. Typically after that I like to schedule a home meeting where I can meet with the family.
Speaker 1:A lady had contacted me over the weekend and she was looking for care. She plays tennis and she wanted someone to be with her husband while she's playing tennis twice a week. So I said you know what I said let me come over. She lives here in Fairfax and let's just let's talk about this, let me meet your husband and let's just let's have some Q and A, and she was totally on board. We just spent some time in her living room and just I met the husband, former military, and it was just, it was nice. So we left that she's expecting our nurse, our director of nursing, is calling her up to schedule an assessment. The assessment is basically it's a lot of Q&A, but what kind of care is needed? Visual checks, are there any open wounds, rashes, so on and so forth? And then we start care and one of the things that our agency does that I've done for years, I really enjoy it, is when care is being started for the first time with a family.
Speaker 1:What I like to do is I like to go meet the caregiver there and introduce, let's say, betty the caregiver to Mr Jones or Mrs Jones. And it bridges that gap because typically I've been there a couple of times already and it's the caregiver's first time. So if the caregiver gets lost, I can hey, where are you? No park over here. Let me show you what to do. Sometimes the caregivers they don't. They're not understanding what's going on. This is just a last minute call. It's helter skelter.
Speaker 1:I think the caregivers appreciate this as much as the clients do and, if anything, it just bridges a little bit of trust. Hey, you know what Cardinal was there. They didn't forget about me, they helped me, and those are just some of the expectations. We typically will check in from time to time. Sometimes I do drop by unannounced to see what the caregivers are doing. Sometimes I'll call the family and say, hey, I'm going to be over next week. Can I come over around one o'clock just to check in? It's important to have that customer service, but also to understand what's going on in the family. Are there dynamics? Did something happen? Is the caregiver working out?
Speaker 2:or maybe they're not working out, so I'm probably an over-involved owner, but I like it, so it works for me. Hey, you know what I think? Over the years we've all talked about how customer service doesn't exist much anymore. So I think being an over-involved owner is very nice, and I would agree that if I were a caregiver walking into a home for the first time, I would so appreciate the fact that someone else who knows this family, has already been there, talked to them and I can learn cue off of what's going on when I walk in the door.
Speaker 2:A nice introduction is helpful for everybody all the way around, not just cold walking into whatever's going on.
Speaker 1:So agree, agree.
Speaker 2:That is a wonderful nice touch that not all home care agencies will do. I think that's a great customer service attribute, so that's great. Don't stop doing that or somebody. If it's not somebody, your director of nursing or whoever making that introduction is a nice touch for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to your point, our director of nursing sometimes does do it and she does a phenomenal job. If it's an emergency client where we need someone there, like ASAP, sometimes we'll have the caregiver meet our director of nursing there and they go through things together. That's right, that's perfect. I love that. But I think at the end of the day, I think the family just appreciates that someone cares, right, there's compassion, you're showing love, support, trust. I mean it just makes a good impression and I know some agencies do it, but I wish more did it, because I think that the difference is noticeable.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely it is. All. This is a very emotional business to be in, with families who are feeling very overwhelmed and people receiving care who might feel a little overwhelmed by all of this. So the more you can show that you're there for them and, of course, putting a name in a face with a company, I think that's a huge relief to so many. They want to know who they can call or who the person responsible is. If the buck stops with you, then that's good to know. So that's great. And is there anything else that people ask or people wonder about that we haven't addressed or talked about with Cardinal Home Care?
Speaker 1:Not that I can think of top of my head. Every family has their different circumstances or different things that come up. We do a lot of work in communities. I had mentioned that. A lot of directors of nursing will reach out to us. The biggest thing is just accessibility, right? People call me, they'll text me. Hey, can you help with this? Can you do that? I think, if you love what you do, I think it just shows right, I don't know how else to say it. And so you know this you can't help everybody. There's things are going to happen.
Speaker 1:Balls get dropped from time to time, but we had a really a rough experience about a year ago in a community with a caregiver and it wasn't really her fault, but another story. I was over there in about 20 minutes. Issue got resolved. I talked to the community and she actually appreciated the kind of us just owning up to what we did and it was almost like that service recovery that she appreciated. That actually kept us in that community, continue working in it, because she felt and I asked her this afterwards she felt that if something went south, that we were going to take care of it and it wasn't just oh sorry and don't hear back from us. So I think every situation is a little bit different. I think if you lead with integrity, I think that speaks loudly. I said this earlier. I'll say it again I love what I do.
Speaker 2:And if we can help people, that's what we're here for. Well, dale, it really shows. And thank you for telling us all about your business and who you serve and how well you serve your clients. I appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1:No, thank you too, and I appreciate the opportunity, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
