TRANSCRIPT

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Episode #27 - Personalized Solutions for Quality Homecare for Seniors

Introduction

Eric Blake: Welcome to another episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast, where we focus on retirement planning so you can focus on retirement living. I'm your host, Eric Blake. Today, our topic is how to find the right caregiver for yourself or, as is the case for many of our clients and listeners to this show, how to find the right caregiver for your family member or close friend.

And, as I say a lot, these are the types of topics that, without effective resources, can still derail your retirement just as easily as not having the right investment strategy or not having the right tax planning.

Our guest on today's show to help us better understand how to find the right caregiver is Danielle Bonilla. Danielle originally planned to get into teaching and didn't actually have a background in healthcare. However, it was her personal experience with her grandmother that opened her eyes to the challenges faced by aging loved ones and their families. Her family experienced the exact problem that many of our audience members face, and that's finding appropriate care and, more specifically, care that allows your loved one to stay in their own home.

Today, Danielle is going to share her knowledge with our audience on how her company, Hallmark Homecare, can provide educational resources. And if necessary they can actually help you find an independent caregiver that can provide personalized senior care. So with that, Danielle Bonilla, welcome to the Simply Retirement Podcast.

Danielle Bonilla: Hi Eric. Thank you so much for inviting me to be on. I'm really excited to be here today and just share my personal experience as well as kind of going into how we can help others and the different types of avenues people have out there because I don't think a lot of people know the knowledge is not there-

Eric Blake: Absolutely.

Danielle Bonilla: ... and people just, they need help, they need guidance, they need resources.

Eric Blake: Well, I think I... and somehow,, this conversation came up a couple of days ago in another group I'm part of and was a lot about how women become the primary caregiver. Oftentimes, it's the oldest daughter that has to take that responsibility, and unfortunately, so many women will take it all on their shoulders, especially if they don't know what resources are out there. If they can't find it they're just going to do it, and that's just kind of the way-

Danielle Bonilla: Totally.

Eric Blake: ... it is. So I always felt like that's really one of the objectives I wanted to have for this show.., is how can we get those resources out there? How can people find the tools that can help them take a lot of that off the... They're never going to take it all off their plate. We know how most women are right. There's never... They're never going to completely release it because they care so much, but at least know there's resources out there that can help step in, even if it's only temporary.

And if you would again, I kind of touched on it from the very beginning doing the introduction there, but just share a little bit about your background and how you got into this business. Feel free to share about your grandmother. I've done the same with my grandmother is a big part of my "why", so I love to hear those stories myself. So, just a little bit about your background and how you got where you are today.

Personal Journey to Caregiving

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah, totally. So I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur own my own business at a very young age. I spent most of my time running retail stores. I was a project manager for 10 years and so I was kind of help guiding people during both of those processes. I've always had a caring heart, wanting to help others. As you mentioned, I wanted to be a teacher, which was my original plan going into college. I ultimately changed and went into business simply because those places that I was at I saw the business side and I was like "Wow this is really cool."

And so I kind of roped my dad in very early trying to tell him like, "Let's go, let's go." And he's like, "Can you just get through school? Let's just get through this." And every time, I'm like, "Okay, well, now I'm halfway through school, Dad." And he's like, "Well, just finish school first." So there's always been that plan to kind of go into business together to kind of build a legacy for... His biggest thing was leaving something for me and then also passing down to my children.

And so 10 years had passed by, and we kept having the conversation, but right in the middle of that, my grandmother, who lived in California, ended up... She was by herself out there, with no family out there because we lived out here and ultimately had her last fall, broke her hip, had to have surgery, and they were just going to send her home, knowing she couldn't be on her own. And it's crazy thinking back to it because they didn't refer out to anybody. They didn't refer to a home care agency, and they didn't refer to her moving into assisted living. They were just literally sending her home on a bus to her house.

So the day before Christmas, my dad flew out there, got my grandma, and brought her to our house, and she came and lived in my parents' home. She was there for about three years until, ultimately, they just couldn't care for her anymore.I'd fill in when I could, but during that whole time, we did have some physical therapy people coming out for that. She needed much more hands-on care. They were both working. I'd fill in when I could but during that whole time we did have some physical therapy people coming out for that. But no one ever told us home care was an option. Our only option was a nursing home. And so that's where we ended up sending her.

And unfortunately, she did pass a few years ago. She got sick from COVID and ended up in the hospital. And so I wish we would've had more resources and more ways to find... I don't know if we would've done home care. We don't know that at that time, but it was never presented to us. We went through that with my grandmother, and then a few years later, we decided to start finally looking for businesses to own. And we got in contact with someone who showed us Hallmark Homecare.

We went on a few calls with them. We went out and met them and we knew instantly it was something that really tugged at our heart. We knew if we were going to go into business, it needed to be meaningful. We wanted to like what we did. We wanted to try and make a difference. We didn't want to just pick anything, just have a business. So when we met the owners and the concept and the model of the business, we just really were like, "Wow, this is great." So, in January of last year, we officially started Hallmark. So we've been in business a little over a year now-

Eric Blake: Nice.

Danielle Bonilla: ... and we're absolutely loving it. And we're so glad we went with this business and we would do it again a hundred more times to be where we're at right now.

Eric Blake: Very cool. So I have to ask you this question then. So I always get the question: my wife. She's my go-to. She works for me, works with me. So I get the question, of course, what's it like to spend all that time with your wife? We've had Jules Jules Hicks on in-

Danielle Bonilla: Yep.

Eric Blake: ... episode 10. She works with her mom. That was a great story behind how they got involved together. And so how is it... what is it like to work with your dad?

Danielle Bonilla: It's great. My dad and I are pretty much the same person. We get along so well. Our ideas always mesh together. W,And he'll be like, "Well, I'm your dad, so I get to make the decision on this one.e're always on the same page. And so it's been great because I get to talk to my dad every day. I get to... We get to go do fun events together.

We get to be together in such a different way than we have before. Every now and again our ideas don't mesh. It's not very often. So it's pretty funny. And he'll be like "Well I'm your dad so I get to make the decision on this one. [inaudible 00:08:10]."

Eric Blake: that's not fair.

Danielle Bonilla: I know, right? That's what I said. But it's funny because you'll hear him when we're out and about now when we get to do our 30 seconds telling people about us, I get to do mine, and he stands up and says, "I do what she tells me to do."

Eric Blake: There you go.

Danielle Bonilla: And it's kind of how it goes now. He just goes wherever we need him, and whatever needs to be done, he's our go-to "Hey, get this done. We need this." And he's like, "I'm on it."

Unique Business Model

Eric Blake: Nice. There you go. Well, so let's talk... let's get into what exactly you do. Because it is a different... You kind of described it as a unique model to how you go about helping people find the right care because it's not about... There's different... There's some great businesses out there. I talked about Mary Greer. She's someone that we both know-

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah.

Eric Blake: ... and what they do. But as far as what you do, it's a different way of helping people find the right care. So,, can you just walk us through what that model looks like?

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah absolutely. So yeah, you're exactly right. There are tons of other non-medical home care companies out there and they're all... a lot of them are so great. You mentioned Mary. We work very closely with her. We work very closely with a lot of these other companies.

Eric Blake: Right.

Danielle Bonilla: But we all have a unique aspect to us. And so something that's going to make us unique here at Hallmark is we are going to connect independent caregivers to work directly for the family. And so a lot of people are like, "Okay, well, what does that mean?" Essentially, we're cutting out that middle man, which is going to be... the biggest thing, it's going to be a cost-savings for the family. So, that cost savings, we are passing off to the family. They're going to be charged a little bit less but they're going to get a little bit greater control over their care. They get to come up with their care plan directly with their caregiver.

Customized Care Plans

They're also going to get a caregiver that is specifically for their needs. We're not just going through our roster and saying, "Okay, who's up next that we can send?" We dive a little bit deeper into the needs of the family, very specific on the type of persona,lity that they're looking for and the type of experience that they've been into. Do they have certain certifications that the family wants them to have? So we dive a little bit deeper allowing the family to kind of have that control of "Who is it that you want in your home?" And although we might send someone they get to do their own interview process if they choose to decide if that's someone that they feel would be a good fit.

And if it's not we go back to the drawing board. We say, "Okay, well, what was it about them that you felt wasn't a good fit? Okay. They didn't talk enough. So you want someone who talks more or you need someone who maybe is a little bit younger because you feel like your family member will connect with a younger person versus someone who is a little bit older." So we kind of dig a little bit deeper into those types because, ultimately, we want both the family and the caregiver to have the best experience. And if both of them are happy they're going to get long-term better care.

Specialized Care Capabilities

Eric Blake: Well one of the things I asked you as we were getting ready to have our conversation is just describing a little bit about there's all types of care out there. You hear the word care that can be... that in itself can be confusing about what that really means because talking about there's medical care, there's non-medical, there's skilled nursing, there's all these different types of care that people can receive. So, what types of care does Hallmark provide specifically?

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah. So, although we're classified as non-medical like most of your other home care agencies, all of them are going to be non-medical. And then, like you said, we are going to have some skilled nursing. There are going to be companies who do more of the skilled nursing. We're kind of that middle ground for people because although we say non-medical we absolutely can do more of the skilled nursing. And that is where I go back to finding that perfect caregiver. So we are going to find a caregiver who can do more of that skilled nursing if that's what you need.

Someone who's had the experience, who has the certifications. And since they're independent and working for the family, they are allowed to do it. Versus in a traditional agency model, there are rules and regulations where they actually are not allowed to do those types of things. And so for example wound care your traditional agency cannot do any type of wound care. They're not allowed. They can maybe replace a band-aid but anything beyond that they're not allowed to do.

Eric Blake: Okay.

Danielle Bonilla: We can do that. As long as the caregiver is willing, has the experience, and is skilled in it, they're able to do it., And so the family will request it. And then when we're going out and recruiting that's the conversation that we're having with that caregiver of "Do you have experience with wound care? Tell me about your experience. Do you have a reference that I can talk to about your experience and are you comfortable doing this for this family?" So that's where we dive deeper into connecting families and doing that matchmaking.

Empowering Independence

Eric Blake: That's great. That's very good information. And one of the things,, and I don't know if I interpreted this a little bit differently what maybe you had intended, but to me, just going through some of the preparation for our conversation and understanding that it looks like to me from your perspective that your connection to the caregiver themselves may be a little bit just a different situation where you've give them a little more flexibility if they are independent. These days, people want to work part-time full-time depending on their circumstances. And it looks like maybe that's something you guys can offer the caregiver as well.

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah. So, on the family side, it's great because they get to come up with... they tell us what they need and how many hours they're looking for. And the same with the caregiver side. We're not going to force them to say, "No, you have to work 30 hours a week. No, you can't take any other clients." Because they're independent, they get the ability to create their own schedule and tell us when they're available.

They're allowed to turn down... If I say, "Hey, I have a client for you, can you take this?" They can say no, and I'm not going to hold it against them because they're independent, and it's about working within their schedule and what they have available. And so these caregivers that we're getting, we don't do the training. They're already fully trained. They have to have a minimum of two years of experience out in the field to be able to be added to our registry for us to send them potential clients.

So they have to go out and be trained and have all those certifications before coming in with us. So that is going to be another differentiation between us and another home care company is they might be hiring someone who has no experience and having to go through that training process with them.

Eric Blake: Are there any other... Wait because that's very interesting that... So is that two years is that something that you guys put in place yourselves as just kind of your criteria for engaging with the caregiver?

Danielle Bonilla: That's part of our criteria. So they have to have that minimum of two years' experience because we want to be sending..., Especially because they're independent and they're not being trained we want to make sure that they are truly qualified and that they're able to do the job and they're not showing up to a family's house unable to provide the basic necessities of a caregiver because they've only been doing it for a month.

So, although we don't require someone to have a certification, they at least have to have a minimum of two years of experience. Some families, in some situations they do have to be certified. They have to have their CNA, or they have to have their home health aid or CPR or basic life support. So those are also things that we dig deeper in when we're talking to the caregivers and the family about what type of caregiver that they're going to need in their home.

Client-Centered Recruitment Process

Eric Blake: So when you... somebody that needs care. They reach out to you. What types of... You talked about the higher acuity cases, for example, saying things where I'm sure there are, very specific needs whereas you kind of touched on this already, but I think maybe going a little bit deeper,, if possible where some home care agencies may be a little bit more limited because of as you said some of the things they can't do. So, with you guys not having some of those limitations, that seems to be a great opportunity for you to again just go another level deeper in terms of the care you can provide.

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah, definitely. So specifically one of our clients contacted us. He's got a G-tube. And so that is something some other home care agencies won't touch because it's very specific. It's the feeding tube and you really need to know... That's going to be more of a skilled nursing type of scenario. And so when he reached out to us and needed that care, and he was blind, and so he really needed someone he could trust and be in the home to do the things he needed to do. And so we had to go out and recruit someone specific for this. They had to have experience with the G-tube and not just, "Oh yeah, I did it once at this specific place." They needed to have years of experience. And so that's going to be a scenario where we went out we recruited for someone who has experience with the G-tubes changing out the ports, getting him into the shower to help him get cleaned up, reconnecting it, knowing what medicine how to push it through because a very specific way with these G-tubes. You've got to push water through first.

Then you've got to put the medicine and push another thing, the water. So if people don't know that you can make the client very sick. I mean, there are things that can happen in those scenarios. And so that's why it's important to have someone with that experience. So when I went out to recruit for that, I made sure that their references were people that they've done this for or hospitals or assisted living places that they've done this type of work so I could specifically ask, "Have they done this? Do you feel confident in them doing this again? Would you place them with a family again, being able to do this type of scenario?" So, we were able to find someone who had that experience that could help this family out.

Eric Blake: I think one of the things that would be... Well, I was just thinking about another question. So how many people... how long does it take? So a situation like that where they do have some very specific needs they contact you how long might it take for you to find the right caregiver for them? Is there... What's kind of a general timeframe and then maybe more of a complex situation? How long might that take?

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah. So in a situation where I already have someone in my system who... in my registry who is available to take it who's been fully vetted meaning they've went through the interview process reference checked background check came back clear I can place them same day if I needed to. Someone who I need to go out and recruit for depending on if the background checks. Sometimes,, that could be the holdup. Sometimes I can submit background checks and within a couple of hours it's back. Sometimes it takes a day or two depending on the county that it's going for.

And then, especially someone who's got more complexity where I really have to do lots of interviewing someone specific like the G-tube, it could take me up to 72 hours to find someone. But that's typically the longest it's ever taken me to get somebody into a home to be able to care for a family. And that's going to be your full process of my interviewing background check reference checks, filling out all the paperwork that needs to be on file. The longest it's ever been is about 72 hours. So usually it can be 24 to 72 hours to be able to find someone.

Eric Blake: So I did not really... that's not as long as I thought it might take.

Danielle Bonilla: And I think that's what people... they think that the hard... that with our model, "Oh, it must be really hard for you to find caregivers." Yeah. And I think that's what people... they think that the hard... that with our model "Oh it must be really hard for you to find caregivers." And it's not. It's actually one of the easiest parts of my job, to be honest, because we've got tons of very skilled people out there that want to work. And unfortunately some of the environments they work in they are unfortunately underpaid.

And going back to our model where we're cutting out the middle man, taking that savings, and passing it on to the client, the caregiver is actually able to be paid more because the client is saving more money. And so the caregivers want to work, they want to pick up hours, and they want to do this type of work.

And so being able to find people even to step in for some of those lower hours, they're willing to do so because they are getting paid a little bit more and know that they have the flexibility with us to accept other jobs with us or outside of us with other companies because we aren't going to limit them on that ability either.

Eric Blake: I want to get to your process because I am a very big process person. I think it's very important when somebody's looking at hiring a service or professional, just like on our website, you go to our website and you see the Simply Retirement Roadmap Process. That's our process. We take every prospective client through to say "Hey I want to make sure I can make an educated and informed decision on if this firm can help me if they can help me reach my retirement goals."

And you have a really... it's a simple... it's a four-step process that you have on the website. It's a nice little helpful graphic but can you kind of take us through what that process looks like? Somebody says "I really need care or my family member needs care." What does that look like? The first option... The first step is they make a call. They call you. What happens from there?

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah. So once we get that phone call, our business development manager is going to have that conversation with them, and we're going to do an intake or an interview. You'll hear both ways. But that's really us diving deeper into this family. So that interview can take place in their home. It can take place at the rehab or hospital that they might be at. It can take place over the phone, whatever they're comfortable with, and works within their schedule because our goal is always to make it as easy as possible for the family. We don't want to make it complex where we're required to meet them in their home. So we're going to have this conversation with them and we're going to dive deep into their day-to-day. "Okay, tell me what your day is. What time do you wake up? What do you eat for breakfast?

Okay, is there someone in the home to make you your breakfast if they're not there?" So we're really asking these in-depth questions to try and help them figure out a schedule. Because a lot of the times when people call us, they don't call us saying, "Hey, yeah, I need someone from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM every day." A lot of them don't know right away. So we're trying to help them come up with that schedule and really ask those questions of "Okay can you get yourself to the restroom? When do you take showers? Is it every other day? Who's going to cook you your dinner? How are you going to get to a doctor's appointment?" So we're going to ask these questions and figure out what they need. And then once we have those questions answered then we're going to kind of go into "Is there someone specific that you're looking for?

If you had the idea if you could build your perfect caregiver what is it that you want in your home?" And so sometimes they don't know. They don't know that answer and that's okay. And so that's where we come in, and based on our conversation with them and how we feel their personality is, we're going to go off that. They're like, "Well, I really like to watch Hallmark movies, so I really want someone who loves those."They're like, "I really would like to have someone who's a little bit younger who has experience in... with a Hoyer lift, someone who is very talkative and likes to do puzzles." But some of them are very specific. They're like "I really would like to have someone who's a little bit younger who has experience in... with a Hoyer lift someone who is very talkative and likes to do puzzles." And so you're kind of diving deeper into these specifics because we've had people who ask that. They're like "Well I really like to watch Hallmark movies so I really want someone who loves those." So we're like, "Okay, so we can see if we can find someone like that."

So once we find out those specifics, then that is when it gets passed to me, and I start the recruiting process. So, that could be going into my registry to find someone who's already in my system. And I don't always look at... Of course, my first thing is I want to find someone who's close to the home. We don't want a caregiver having to drive 45 minutes. Our ultimate goal is to get them hopefully within 20 minutes of a client's home is the ideal situation. So I start down my list, I look at who we have on the So we'll call the family, we'll tell them about the caregivers that we have, and then from there, they get to make the decision, schedule, and then I start diving deeper into the notes that I've taken on them to see, "Okay, would this person work? Would they be a great fit for this family?" And if I don't have someone, then that's when I go out and do my recruiting, which is when I start posting my ads, doing my interviewing, and trying to find that perfect match.

So once I feel like I have a perfect match usually I'll have one or two. I don't like to do more than that because then it starts to overwhelm the family. So we'll call the family we'll tell them about the caregivers that we have and then from there they get to make the decision. Do they want to interview the client or the caregiver, or do they want us just to send them to work a shift, and that is kind of the interview? They're working the shift seeing if it's compatible. And once they make the decision on a caregiver, they kind of tell them, "Hey, we do want to hire you. We want you to be working with us." And so that's when they'll start with the family.

Eric Blake: So, are you involved in that final fourth step where they make that decision, or do you let them try to do that on their own?

Danielle Bonilla: It depends on the family. Everyone's going to be a little bit different. We've had families who want to meet the caregiver. They hire them out, and then they call me and say, "Hey, so-and was great.I have other ones who will tell me, "Hey, I met with them. I've hired them. They start tomorrow. Wonderful." I have other ones who will tell me "Hey I met with them. I think they're really great. What do I do now?" So that's when I walk them through, "Okay. Do you want to hire them? Do you want them to work for you? Well, yeah, I do.So I say okay, do you want me to call on your behalf and let them know that you would like them to work for you, or do you want to make that phone call?"

So I say okay do you want me to call on your behalf and let them know that you would like them to work for you or do you want to make that phone call?" So we kind of let them make the decisions. We are working on behalf of the client, so we do what they need us to do, whether that's making the phone calls to the caregiver or helping them figure out how to have conversations. So that's... we're in their corner to do what it is that they need from us.

Eric Blake: And hopefully, I'm not throwing this question out as too much of a surprise. I probably should have brought it up before we started, but just first to clarify, so the care recipient or their family will pay the caregiver, correct?

Danielle Bonilla: Essentially. So, the great thing about us is that although we're cutting out that middleman and the caregivers working directly for the family, once we find the caregiver, we're not out of the picture.

Eric Blake: Okay.

Danielle Bonilla: So we do the administrative pieces, too. So that's keeping up with background checks, keeping up with driver's licenses that expire or auto insurance that expires. That's also going to be the scheduling piece. So we have an application for the caregiver to use to clock in and out from their phone that's got GPS tracking.

So, making sure that they're clocking in at the home and clocking out at the home. So if they're not doing that, it notifies us, and that's when we can check with the family. "Hey, there was a clock out outside the home," and they can say, "Oh yeah, it's fine. They dropped me off at this house and then clocked out." So we're able to monitor that for them to make sure that their caregiver is following the rules, making sure that they're getting taken care of and that the caregiver is where they're supposed to be.

On top of the clocking in and out, we also offer payment processing. So, the system will take care of processing the payment for them each week. They don't have to think about it just automatically does it. And then that is when it gets distributed to the appropriate parties. The system will do that for them. So we're kind of taking that leg work out of it for them. They get the benefit of their own caregiver, but they don't have to do the work for it because what people don't realize is having to go find your independent caregiver. It's going to be a grueling process.

Turnover rate can be really high depending on how you're doing with your interviewing. And how are you doing your background checks? Did you make sure that their driver's license is valid? Okay. Well, now they're not insured. That's the other thing. We are insured. We're fully insured and we offer occupational accidental insurance on the caregiver. Those are things you're not going to get if you try and find your own independent caregiver.

Eric Blake: What I've done... Quite honestly I have to say I wish we had known about you guys when my grandmother was seeking care. We got really lucky in that we did find mom-and-daughter team that have been amazing. They've been with her for the last, I don't want to say, four years or so-

Eric Blake: ... 24/7, but I think we got lucky.

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah.

Eric Blake: Honestly, I feel like we got extremely lucky with that duo that we found because you hear so many horror stories about the care. They don't stop. They stop, just don't show up or whatever. They don't pay attention to them, or they just leave them in their bed or whatever. It might be the case. So, I think the service you guys provide is tremendously valuable.

I always like to ask this. Is there an example of a situation where you were able to find the perfect match or the feedback that you received from a family where it just feels like it made you feel, "This is why we do what we do." Do you have an example that you might be able to share? You don't have to share names, but just an example of where you felt like, "Hey, this is why we do this."

Success Stories

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah. When you had asked me that question, we were talking about this before we started our conversation. It's hard to pinpoint just one because I'm like, "Gosh, I have a few of them that instantly pop into my head." I mean, we had a case this week where the daughter called me, and she said, "I just had to call and tell you that when I walked in the door, my dad was playing his harmonica, and the caregiver was sitting there clapping her hands and smiling" she said, "It brought tears to my eyes because I haven't seen my dad like that in such a long time." So I feel like I get so much of that all the time. And I love when families call and tell me those stories. Not all of them do. And so when they specifically call me to tell me, it just makes... it just brings warmth to my heart. And I'm like, "Gosh, this is exactly why we got into this." But I had a few different ones. One of them I had a family who unfortunately the gentleman was very young. He was only 65 years old-

Eric Blake: Oh wow.

Danielle Bonilla: ... and he's got MS. And he was at the stages where he pretty much couldn't function anymore. He was fully wheelchair-bound, but he did not want to move into assisted living because of his age. He was like, "I'm young. I am not ready for that. I want to stay home." But care was expensive. And so when they found us because we were able to kind of cut out that middleman, we were able to save them $3000 a month and they were able to stay... he was able to stay in his home and still is. I mean, he's getting to be able to live where he wants to live, and eventually, he might need some more help. But that was one of those cases that we were thankful that they found us because I understand at 65, I probably wouldn't be ready to move into that yet because usually the people in that facility are a little bit older, and he's still young. And he's like, "I'm not ready for that. I love my home and want to be here." So yeah that gentleman and I would say one other one that really struck us.

We had a client who's got dementia, and they weren't ready to move him into memory care yet. And so their last hope was getting a caregiver in there to stay home. They called him Paw Paw. And we were able to help him stay home another three months by getting a caregiver in there. And they got to spend more time with him. And that one specifically they had an idea of a caregiver that they wanted. They wanted someone older and a male, and we ended up placing them with a young female. And it worked out way better than they thought because he looked at her as his granddaughter. And I think that's why he excelled so much. And so that is where it's finding that perfect match and really getting to know the family really played a huge part in it. So it's like I feel like I talk about it all day because some of these families just really hit your heart, and you just love to hear the stories and just being able to help even if it's for a month. I mean, you know that that one extra month can... is so important, and it brings happiness to my heart, and it makes me love what I do even during some of the hard times.

Conclusion

Eric Blake: Yeah. Well, the only thing I have to say is we get in trouble a little bit with her caregivers, my grandmother's, because every time we come visit her, she lives in Amarillo, and we're in the... of course, we're in McKinney. She always knows when we come we're going to go get her the jalapeno cheddar biscuits from Whataburger. She's not really supposed to have them but they kind of overlook it when we're there.

Danielle Bonilla: Oh, that's funny. Hey, you got to live a little, right?

Eric Blake: That's right. She loves those things. So we get her one every... That's our breakfast. Every morning, we go to Whataburger.

Danielle Bonilla: Oh my gosh. I love that. That was something we tell families a lot too. When we're trying to help them think of things that they can do, like "Well, I don't know what to have the caregiver do." We're like, "Well, what do they like to eat? Do they like Whataburger? Oh, he loves Whataburger. Take him to Whataburger. Go get some fries. Go get a burger." They're like, "Really? They can do that? Yes."

Eric Blake: Yeah, she's 89. What are we going to... What's going to... What's the worst can happen?

Danielle Bonilla: Right. Let her enjoy that.

Eric Blake: That's right. Well, so how can our audience connect with you to learn more about what you can do for your services, Hallmark Healthcare? Tell us a little bit about how we can... how people can reach you.

Danielle Bonilla: Yeah. You can always find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram under Hallmark Homecare Collin County. We also have our website, www.hallmarkhomecare.com/103, but if you go to the main website and just find the Collin County location, you can find us directly there.

You've got our phone number. Our email is on there, and you can connect with us. Ask questions if you need to. Resources for anything, even outside of home care, have questions. We're always happy to answer and point you in the right direction.

Eric Blake: Awesome. And we'll make sure we share all this in the show notes so that people can find you and take a look at your amazing services that you offer when they're either looking for healthcare for themselves, or they're looking for a family member. Again it's so important to have these resources available to them. Dani, thank you so much for joining us today. Please be sure to reach out to Danny and Hallmark Homecare if you have questions or you need guidance on choosing the right care provider for yourself or a loved one. Thank you so much to our audience for joining us today.

Please be sure to like, follow, and share the show. If you'd like to learn more about our firm, you can visit our website at www.blakewealthmanagement.com. If you want to listen to previous episodes, ask a question for the show, maybe even suggest a topic, access a number of our other free retirement resources, you can go to www.thesimplyretirementpodcast.com. We're on YouTube at the Simply Retirement Podcast. We're on all the major podcast platforms, and we will see you again on the next episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast. In the meantime, please remember that retirement is not the end of the road. It is the start of a new journey.

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