Season 1, Episode 5: Independent Home Care Alliance Industry Insights with Kunu Kaushal

Kunu Kaushal  is the Founder & CEO of Senior Solutions, Founder of the Independent Home Care Alliance (IHCA), and Past President of the Tennessee Association for Home Care (TAHC). With his grandparents as his first clients, he opened Senior Solutions in 2010, and in its 10+ years of operation, the company has added service lines in transportation, nutrition, care management, transition services, and veteran care solutions, all while expanding to 20+ offices, all 95 counties in Tennessee, and the metro Atlanta, Georgia area.

Kunu recognized a need for independent non-franchise home care company owners and operators to have a safe place in which to collaborate sharing best practices, resources, and encouragement. He had this vision prior to the pandemic, but with the pandemic the need became more amplified.

IHCA Industry Insights is just one avenue of how IHCA provides value to home care company owners and operators. It is our desire to share these insights, to collaborate, and to support. Educate, Empower, Elevate!

Don't be shy and feel free to submit questions between now and then or come prepared with questions for Kunu on May 25th. We will do our best to address each one submitted and each one posted in the comments during the live IHCA Industry Insights session.

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Transcript

Sarah Barker  0:00  
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Sarah Barker with the independent homecare Alliance and today is I HCA Industry Insights. Industry Insights with canoe is just one way that the independent Home Care Alliance is offering value to independent non franchise home care companies across the United States. It's the intention of HCA to create a safe space for independent owners to share best practices to learn from each other, and to learn the what's going on in the industry. And that's why we really rely on the founder canoe to share what he is hearing in the industry, and what he's doing for his own personal, independent home care company. Thank you so much for being with us today. And now we are going to bring canoe in to share his insights.

Kunu Kaushal  0:47  
Thank you so much, Sarah. So, so happy to see everybody, obviously, I can't see you. But I'm glad to spend some virtual time with you what a crazy time of year it's been right now. I don't know about you. But within the industry, a lot of things that I'm noticing as we've got people on vacation, people are catching up on a lot of travel. It feels like you know, the world has started to open up more and more. It is kind of silly, but we're seeing the remnants of a lot of the impacts from COVID start to slowly slip away. And yet, many of you are probably experiencing this, we're seeing infections, we're seeing people call out of work, they're testing positive. You know, luckily, and the good news is, I think we're seeing also the acceptance and adoption of how to deal with these things a little bit better. I will tell you, one of the maybe quick tips I would give you is make sure I mean, it sounds like the obvious make sure you're using the latest and greatest guidance of what you need to do from an employer's basis. You know, from an industry like quick little topic, I'm not an attorney, we work with some great groups around the country that have great attorneys, and we have got some great relationships over at POLSINELLI. And I think it's one of those things where I will just tell you the best offense is a great defense sometimes. And I think you are going to continue to see some elements of clients, people within your circle employees, others that have an expectation, everybody wants relaxed rules, until things go wrong. And in the thing is I don't think you have to, you know, go crazy with overdoing it. But I would do some simple things. Like for example, if someone is feeling ill make it okay for them to contact the office, and least notify you of it. There's a great link. In fact, if you just Google CDC quarantine quiz, depending on the word you use something like that. There is a great tool with the CDC. And it's actually like an online quick little quiz. And then it just asked you five or six questions, based on your answers it gives you do you need to quarantine or isolate? Are you okay? And I'll tell you since we found that tool, which is available to everybody, it's been heavily used, and it gives some really good guidance, right. So it takes the makes it a black and white issue of what's the best thing to do. I don't want to do today is just a total COVID update. But I will just tell you, I mean, as employers as employers, and what could be a healthcare, right, where health care companies as people who have access to what I would say a special population of elderly aging and firmed individuals. These are real issues. Depending on where you are in the country, the climate is different, and that's fine climate around litigation, maybe your state standards and all that. But as an employer, just put your best foot forward, right. So let's get past I guess some of the COVID stuff. So one of the other major topics for today is really all the hubbub around er TC, the employment retention tax credit, we covered this in one of our former conversations, I will tell you just now is the time just know from a time perspective, your ability to do amended returns will run out for the periods of 2020 and 2021. I don't think we're going to do a service to you by giving you our interpretation. That's not our position, I'd certainly don't want to have that

responsibility for you. I can tell you working with a great third party that is very good at talking through this credit is really important. Here's the elements I would say of looking at the right third party to work with and maybe that's a better place to start. I would look for a larger organization, that is not just your CPA, or your bookkeeping company, or maybe just your tax attorney, those people can do it, that's okay. If you really have a solid foundation with them, and they feel comfortable doing it, that's fine. It is not doing the initial evaluation, which is the most burdensome part, your biggest layer of protection, which by the way, is going to be worth some of the fees that they might be charging. Your biggest layer of protection is around the concept of if there is an IRS, maybe further audit or more communication, or they need more information, something like that, this third party's ability to support you through that, okay. And what that means is their ability to say yes, we did this analytical work, we looked at this information, we look, you know, whatever that might be, they built essentially a case for support, a good company is going to give you that information, almost like a booklet as they calculate all this information for you. So if they just give you a spreadsheet with the numbers, that's bad. What is good is a company that's giving you real collateral and material that you can justify some analyst has gone through and said, you know, should you do this or not? It typically, you know, it's there's a range there folks, too. So there's companies that just do the analytical work, there's companies that do the analytical work, and they file the amendment for you. There are companies who do the analytical work, file the amendment and have a funding arm to give you some level of cash as you wait for your credit to arrive. The typical workflow depending on the company is that they're going to get your payroll information and or some business information of how things were going for you during COVID. You know, what, what was the impact and all that, they're then going to do the calculation, they will then give you their analysis where someone they your accountant, someone will need to file 941 amendments for those prior periods, those amendments will need to go to the IRS. Now I want to focus on process here for a second for you the processes that today, the IRS is processing all of that in paper. The unfortunate part is the IRS was given me a lot of money, okay, and I'm talking an obscene amount of money. During that whole COVID era and funding, they did not put it to work. Well, that's not my opinion, that is also substantiated by some groups that are truly kind of these, you know, folks that keep government accountability programs going, in fact, that opinion and that assessments available on the irises own website, okay. So because they have to keep it transparent. So what I can tell you is this credit, when you file your amendment, the amendment will not get processed. For if you are lucky for six to eight months, could be 10 months could be 12, who knows, there's a lot of hopes and dreams and the hopes and dreams are that the IRS speeds up they hire some of these few 100,000 People 100 or 1000 people that they're supposed to be hiring to help process that somewhere in there, they add other areas to become more electronic, so that they can speed through some of the other paperwork. Who knows. But either way I would not make this year like, you know, quick source of capital or cash, it is going to be a process to that's if you qualify. So let the third party do that. Someone, you know, one of our dude, hope you're on today and listening. But you know, there was a great conversation around you know, what's the My perspective on this, and although I type some things online, I will just tell you this, I think depending on your situation, you should view this as real resources for organizations. You should look at it like the PPP, the Payment Protection

Program that was out there. You know, that's long gone. The disaster relief funding that was out there, that's long gone. So your resource stuff of what you have access to is being more and more limited. And so this is one of the last kind of, you know, harbors of hope. If it's something that you should look into, I think you can continue to make an analysis decision through that. I will tell you that. The intent spirit and purpose of these programs include cluding there's a difference between the original rollout of CRTC. And the things that were amended and changed in q3 q4 of 2021. Okay. The spirit and intent is really the understanding that businesses in general, there is not one that I can think of that did not have some impact from COVID. To your business, whether that was you were funding additional resources, you had additional costs, PPE the, you know, gloves masks on your access to caregivers was last year impact of overtime pay went up. There were some adjustment, right? There's everyone face that, in lieu of additional PPP programs in lieu of continuing the disaster relief programs. This program is offsetting what employers have been paying in taxes for a very long time and continued payment, okay, so that's why it's the 941 adjustment. That is, there's an employer tax and impact by the IRS in there. So I don't think you should ever do anything that you are extremely uncomfortable with. But this is one of those things, you just have to make a decision and live with it right? If you did, or didn't take PPP, that's a decision as you as an owner, you decide what you want to do. I will tell you that for people looking and needing help and resources, especially as we go through a rebound function, this is time for you to act. So I leave that comment there. You know, my perspective is, I would look under I think it's a burden to you, that we do not know what the future holds. You know, we couldn't predict COVID, we certainly aren't going to predict what's going to happen with inflation, we couldn't predict what was going to happen with, you know, politically and the environment, we can't predict what's going to happen with Labor and Workforce pressure. So for those of you that we've had a relationship now for many years, you know that one of my mantras is, you know, you've got to basically plan for the unknown, the best that you can, if you are making decisions based on what you know, feel think today, you will be pretty disappointed with what's going to happen in the next six months to one year, meaning you just didn't know what you know now, right? So the environment will change. Alright, so other kinds of items that we're seeing generally in the industry, the good news is, so let's talk about some positive stuff. The good news is we are generally seeing an uptick of hiring, generally seeing an uptick of applications. I think what's really interesting is that the burden of systems and processes are becoming much more apparent. Meaning can you do things at scale, right, there was a time and then the hiring scope, which I don't think you should throw it all away. In the last, let's say, at least a year, a lot of organizations have done a much deeper and maybe going the extra mile with hiring. Potentially, they were doing more one on one hiring versus a group environment. They were doing virtual hiring, but then also a series of interviews, some people sped up their hiring process a lot, and they were bringing their standards down a few notches.

All that's good and fine, I would just tell you, that you're in a moment right now in which you need to keep adjusting, and your team needs to probably get to a point in which they don't get too hung up on any one way of doing things. So give you some examples. If you have a really slow hiring process, because you want to hire the best person, that's okay. Just know that the speed needed, or the volume that's coming your way may overburden the whole process, your selection criteria, if you had reduced your standards quite a bit, you're probably seeing a big volume, it may be time to start bringing your standards up a bit more. Right. So give you a good example. So that it's not just words. There are some people who were saying pre challenges, let's just say okay, so 2019 They were saying, if you're not available seven days a week, we're not going to hire you as a screener, maybe question. We're now in an environment where we're saying, oh gosh, if you're even if you're only available Mondays and Wednesdays, I'll still take you as an employee because I could put you somewhere right So that was maybe a few months ago, that's where you had moved to, you need to start thinking really and truly with your team. In your hiring model, you probably want to make this part of your weekly team huddle, or your weekly group discussion, where you are having this deeper conversation of, hey, where are our standards? I hate to say this week, right? Based on the last few hires we had, do we need to get a little more tight? Do we need to get a little more loose? Do we need to add some new elements to this thing? Totally up to you. I can't give you the formula, not on this call. But I can tell you that your effort needs to go there. Okay. And if you don't think you have a problem with this, have that conversation this week, before the end of the week, I guarantee if you're listening to your team and asking the right questions, you're gonna hear stuff you hadn't taken into consideration. Yeah. All right. The other piece around the hiring element is just remember also that pay and that wage compression issue, you may want to, you know, start thinking about too, if you have a higher velocity of hiring, what that typically means typical supply and demand stuff is that you're gonna have an agency near you, or in your marketplace, who may reduce their fees, right, their actual bill rate slightly, because they feel like they can hire a bit faster, whatever that feels like, I am not saying discount your services, I am not saying reduce your rates, I am saying create a strategy around it and really think about if your volume is down, if your interest is down, if when people hear your rate, you know, over the phone, your minimums and they are not going forward, getting care if that seems to be trending down. These are all things to really keep in mind that as you're hiring, or you see this velocity of hiring, increasing, these are all areas you got to revisit again, just like you did it, when there was that extreme caregiver shortage when everything dried up when caregivers were demanding X amount of pay, and you told the client, you know, our bill rates now $10 More than what it used to be. And they were like, Okay, you need to take stock of all those things. I realized nobody likes that. I realized we all like would lie, at least I would I would love to feel like whatever the spreadsheet says that that's what happens in reality. Just keep in mind, part of leadership and part of being in this volatile environment as the world is doing right now. Everything is a change, right where COVID pressure went down, fuel pressure came up, okay, the cost of doing business has gone up. So you need to balance and continue to balance all these things. The one thing I will tell you is what will never fix the problem is to continue to do business or do work

that you are less than proud of. So if you've still got that client that just isn't paying enough, and you're taking a loss on that, you know, block a business, you will have to rip that band aid off. Okay. If you are still doing lots of short shifts, and your team is totally overburdened by it, you're going to have to create some kind of minimum in hours or something else. So as we're going to really the second half of 22. As you're entering q3, I gotta tell you, tomorrow's the end of q2, it is amazing how quickly you blink and time goes. This is a really good time, I would tell you to think about how you want to play the second half. Halftime is incredibly powerful. If you are looking at the scoreboard, if you're looking at your statistics, halftime can be more than just a motivational speech. I would tell you don't wait until end of year to be like, Oh, I'll make some of these changes in 24 and 23. Excuse me, you know that that's foolhardy. Most of you have been a bit more nimble than that. Not being biased, I will tell you, you know, upcoming, we do have some great programming. We've got some performance groups that are opening up. So you know, we're adding additional members to that group. We have workshops that are in fact our July workshop that's coming up is almost full, you know, it's fascinating, these workshops are getting more and more. The quickness in which they fill up is pretty fast. I'm sure Sarah and the team will give you more communication about that. But regardless of just that, know in go ahead and commit right now. Okay, to some upcoming conferences, we've got a great conference. Well, sky is doing care forum for the independent Home Care Alliance members, we can talk about discount codes for that for you. We will be there. Hope to see you there. homecare association of America's got a conference coming up, right. So hope to see you there. We will, we'll try to do dinner, some events around that decision health is coming. You need to be thinking about your calendar for the rest of the year. I know a lot of you do it. I know it's nervous, right? You get nervous because maybe COVID Travel timing, all I can tell you is in 12 years of being in this industry directly, never have I regretted investing some time and energy to try to D focus out of my environment, not be in my office, not in my spreadsheet, not in from my laptop, and actually get out there again, and try to engage with other people in the industry. If you want a smaller environment come to our workshop, we will not have more than 20 people that attended a time. If you want to be you know more around a partnership with maybe your vendor and you like well, Sky ClearCARE, something like that, go to their thing, if you want if you're interested more in advocacy, which we are proud supporters, the homecare Association of America, you know, they're doing some great stuff around advocacy work, you know, come to that conference. If sales and you want to get into Vegas and kind of get some more energy around again, come to decision out either way. If you're following my plan, do it all right, there's no shortage of information, engagement networking to get together, we know that your time is precious, I don't want to go on and on. But I do want to make sure from an industry side, you know, keep in mind some of the things we talked about. Keep your keep your eye, even at least in the corner of your eye keep keep some focus around COVID. And the impact of it. think very seriously about your ER TC strategy, if you haven't filed, you know, we've got a great partner with HCA that's working, which we trust very much, you know, feel free to work with them, they are slammed. So you know, all these partners are pretty slammed, but your selection criteria needs to come up. And you need to be thinking about your team, strategically, whether it's getting new clients, you know, your velocity of hiring right now, your rate of pay, all the things are still on the table, folks, there are no sacred cows around set and done. That might give some of you anxiety, and I'm sorry, but I also from a from a position of energy and excitement. You've got so many dials, you could do something with if it feels overwhelming, because there's too many dials. That's where I would tell you come to our executive workshop, you know, become a performance group member. This is what we spend our time doing, as we talk about some of these dials are that I can tell you the second half of 22 is a really exciting period for the independent Home Care Alliance. We've got some great announcements that will be coming up. We've also got some great programming that's coming as well. So Sarah, if you want to make your way back onto the screen, I I do want to just thank everybody again, for just you know, giving even 30 minutes of your time sorry for the some of the technical difficulties today. It happens not not our fault, but we will make sure that we correct whatever challenges in the future, including talking to the stream yard or whoever the streaming services. But thanks, I appreciate you. Appreciate you putting all this together. Thanks.

Sarah Barker  23:45  
It's always a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much. All right, everyone, so I'm going to talk to you about AI HCA in general. So the independent Home Care Alliance is a membership based organization that is purely for independent, non franchised home care companies from across the United States. As Ken was mentioning, we do have a lot of programming going on our next IHC executive workshop is July 28, and 29th. In Nashville, the feedback that we get back each time is phenomenal. And already yesterday, I was in a performance cohort meeting. So a mastermind group that we do, and one of the members at that level had attended the last one. And so I asked, have you had the time to implement any of the things that you learned at the workshop? And he got extremely excited and said yes, of course. And they're already implementing all of the education that they learned and their team is excited. So the value of making your way to Nashville for an HCA executive workshop, we're super confident that you will find it well worth your time. So consider going July 28, and the 29th. You can find more information about that by going to our website, www dot i n d h ca.org Additionally, our performance cohorts are filling up. So that is our mastermind offering, as I just said, there's a methodology to it, where we're really creating the safe space where owners are not with their competitors, right in the same territory, but they're sharing their struggles. But importantly, they're sharing their wins too. So that way the other owners can hear what's going well, so they could probably try to implement that in their business too. We are considering launching an AI HCA Business Development Workshop, because that question continues to come up our existing members and others that are considering membership in HCA. Keep talking about how they want some help with their marketing strategy, their business development, their sales, because all three of those things are very different. But how do you bring them all together and actually have a plan that you as the owner can go execute? Or if you have a marketer, how can they execute? And then what can you do as the owner to provide that accountability, right, so there'll be successful, or the training, and then the accountability piece? So we are considering that on June 27? If you have any interest in that, definitely let us know. So we can add you to the list. And if you're curious about membership, again, you can go to our website, or feel free to reach out to me and I'm happy to have a meeting with you answer any questions that you may have. The bottom line is the people that are actually participating in the benefits of HCA are finding the value in their home care company and they're seeing the change. So I highly encourage you to learn more, start participating and if you need help with anything, please let us know. Have a wonderful day.