Non-medical home care, companion & respite
Be the agency that answers first—without running intake and scheduling from your nightstand.
Deptly helps non-medical home care agencies turn evening inquiries into started cases — and carries the shift confirmations, the call-out coverage, and the care-agreement chasing in between — while every assessment, caregiver match, and care decision stays with your care manager.
Part of Senior Care & Private Home Care
What does Deptly do for non-medical home care, companion & respite?
Deptly answers the families who reach out after dinner and on weekends — in your voice, within minutes — books the in-home assessment against your care manager's real calendar, and chases the service agreement, payer details, and long-term-care paperwork until care actually starts. It confirms caregiver shifts, works your coverage list when someone calls out, and keeps families updated from your team's visit notes. Every assessment, match, and care decision stays with your care manager.
Sound familiar?
Five moments from the way this work actually runs — not because anyone is careless, but because the loop depends on whoever is busiest.
It's 9:15 on a Sunday night and an adult daughter is filling out contact forms at three agencies at once. Whoever texts her back first gets Monday's assessment.
5:52 AM: 'So sorry, can't make my 8 o'clock with Mrs. W.' The scheduler is nineteen texts deep before her own coffee is done.
The assessment on Monday couldn't have gone better. It's Thursday, the discharge is tomorrow, and the service agreement is still unsigned in the daughter's inbox.
The daughter in Phoenix calls the office again to ask how Mom's week went. The answer is sitting in the caregivers' visit notes — which nobody has had a minute to turn into an update.
A caregiver quietly assumes she's off Saturday. The family assumes she's coming. Nobody finds out who's right until 8:05 Saturday morning.
Why this happens
Families don't decide about care during business hours. They decide after the hard weekend visit, after the discharge planner's call finally sinks in, after dinner when the siblings have compared notes — and then they contact two or three agencies in the same hour. The person at your agency best equipped to answer with warmth and competence is a care manager who spent the day in clients' homes. So the inquiries most likely to become months of care land at exactly the moments nobody can take them well.
The rest of the business runs on waiting states. A case isn't won at the assessment; it's won when the agreement is signed, the payer details are in, and the caregiver introduction happens on time. A shift isn't staffed when it's scheduled; it's staffed when it's confirmed and the caregiver actually arrives. WellSky or AxisCare holds the schedule, but the confirming, the covering, the chasing, and the updating around it are all a person — and in most agencies that person is the scheduler at 6 AM and the owner at 9 PM.
None of this is a discipline problem; it's structural. Today's uncovered shift will always outrank tomorrow's unsigned agreement, so the follow-up loses every day — and the follow-up is where starts of care, referral reputation, and family trust actually live. Deptly holds the interruptions and the waiting states so your team can hold the care.
What Deptly handles here
Three complete responsibilities — each with a trigger, the actions carried, the escalation point, and what done actually means.
Responsibility 1
Answer the family and get the assessment on the calendar
- Starts when
- A call, text, or website form arrives from a family — usually evenings, weekends, or the hour after a discharge planner's call — while your care manager is mid-visit or the office is dark.
- What Deptly does
- Responds within minutes in the intake voice you approve — warm first, questions second
- Asks your intake questions: who care is for, mobility and memory, the hours needed, and any discharge deadline
- Books the in-home assessment against your care manager's real calendar and confirms it in writing
- Sends the family a short what-to-expect note and the intake packet ahead of the visit
- Briefs your care manager with everything gathered, flagged for anything urgent like a Friday discharge
- Comes to you when
- Anything clinical, a family in crisis about a current client, or a conversation carrying real grief goes to a person right away — Deptly never counsels.
The assessment is on the calendar with the family confirmed and your care manager briefed — or the inquiry is in front of you with one clear question.
Responsibility 2
Carry the care proposal to a signed start
- Starts when
- The assessment is done and the care proposal is with the family — and the file still needs a signed agreement, payer details, and often a long-term-care insurer's paperwork.
- What Deptly does
- Sends a same-day recap and the agreement, and answers routine questions from what your care manager already provided
- Follows up on the cadence you approve — steady, never pushy — until each document lands
- Tracks exactly what's missing: the signature, the power-of-attorney details, the policy number, the physician form for the LTC claim
- Coordinates the start date and the caregiver introduction once your care manager approves the match
- Records a no with the reason, or schedules a check-back, when a family isn't ready
- Comes to you when
- Rate questions beyond your published ranges, hesitation about the level of care, and any request to change the proposed hours go to your care manager.
Every proposal ends as a scheduled start of care with a complete file, a recorded no with the reason, or a check-back on the calendar — and the weekly brief shows which.
Responsibility 3
Keep shifts confirmed and cover the call-out
- Starts when
- A caregiver texts a call-out — 5:52 AM before an 8:00 shift — or a shift sits unconfirmed inside the window you set.
- What Deptly does
- Confirms upcoming shifts with caregivers on your cadence, so nobody discovers a misunderstanding at the client's door
- On a call-out, pulls the eligible list by your matching rules: clients they've served, skills, distance, and hour limits
- Sends shift offers in your continuity order and briefs whoever accepts with the client's preferences and access notes
- Tells the family proactively who is coming and when — before the doorbell, not after
- Updates the schedule in your system so the record matches reality
- Comes to you when
- If nobody accepts inside your window, or the only available caregiver falls outside your matching rules, your on-call scheduler gets the situation and the eligible list — one decision, not a research project.
The shift is covered, briefed, and confirmed with the family informed — or it's in your scheduler's hands with everything gathered. Either way, nobody finds out at 8:05.
One job, before and with Deptly
The same signal, followed all the way to a verified outcome instead of waiting on whoever is busiest.
Today
- 5:52 AM: a caregiver texts the scheduler — sick, can't take her 8 AM shift with Mrs. Whitfield.
- The scheduler starts texting down the roster from memory, coffee in the other hand. Three no-replies, one 'sorry, at my other job.'
- 7:20 AM: still nobody. She starts calling caregivers who have never met the client.
- 7:45 AM: someone finally accepts. There's no time for a real briefing; she gets an address and a door code.
- 8:20 AM: the daughter calls — a stranger showed up late and her mother was frightened. The morning's intake follow-ups never happened.
With Deptly
- 5:52 AM: the call-out text lands. Deptly acknowledges the caregiver and pulls the eligible list by your matching rules — clients served, skills, distance, hour limits.
- 5:58 AM: shift offers go to the top three eligible caregivers, starting with one who has covered Mrs. Whitfield before.
- 6:15 AM: Rosa accepts. Deptly confirms her, sends her the client's preferences and access notes, and updates the schedule in your system.
- 6:20 AM: the daughter gets a message — Rosa, who has cared for her mother before, will be there at 8 as planned.
- 8:00 AM: Rosa arrives on time and briefed. Your scheduler starts her day with a closed loop instead of a nineteen-name thread.
- The weekly brief shows the call-out, who covered it, and that the family heard before the doorbell — with nothing left open.Closed loop
Start from the outcome you want
The same responsibilities, prioritized differently depending on what you are trying to change first.
Win the case while the family is still deciding
Families choose the agency that answers first with warmth and a plan — usually the same evening they decided Dad can't be alone anymore. Deptly replies within minutes in your voice, books the in-home assessment while the family is still comparing agencies, and follows every care proposal until it becomes a signed start, a recorded no, or a scheduled check-back. It also asks happy families for the reviews other adult children read at 11 PM. Same referral sources, fewer cases lost to voicemail.
Take the coordination shift off your team
If your scheduler's phone lives on the nightstand, the agency owns her mornings and your evenings. Deptly takes the coordination shift: it confirms upcoming caregiver shifts so Saturday holds no surprises, works the coverage list the minute a call-out lands, chases agreements and long-term-care paperwork until they're actually done, sends families their updates on schedule, and follows overdue invoices on your policy. What reaches your care manager is a short brief and the handful of decisions that genuinely need her.
Grow census without dropping a shift
Discharge planners and elder law attorneys refer to agencies that answer fast and never miss a shift — and both get harder as census grows. Deptly holds both ends: new inquiries answered and assessments booked while existing clients' shifts stay confirmed, call-outs get covered inside your rules, and families keep hearing from you. The weekly brief shows what needs attention before it becomes a phone call, so the next referral gets a yes you can actually staff.
What Deptly handles, asks about, and never decides
Every responsibility above runs inside this boundary. You set the rules; anything outside them waits for you.
Deptly handles
Routine work done within the rules you approve.
- Answers every family inquiry — call, text, or form — within minutes, in the intake voice you approve, evenings and weekends included
- Books in-home assessments against your care manager's real calendar and confirms them the day before
- Chases service agreements, power-of-attorney and payer details, and long-term-care insurance paperwork until the file is start-ready
- Confirms upcoming caregiver shifts and works your coverage list on a call-out, inside the matching rules you set
- Sends families scheduled updates built from your team's visit notes
- Sends invoices and follows overdue balances on your policy
Deptly asks first
Anything judgment-shaped waits for your okay.
- Offering a start date before the assessment is done and the file is complete
- Any caregiver-client match your standing continuity and skills rules don't already cover
- Rates beyond your published ranges, discounts, and billing exceptions
- What a family is told after a fall, hospitalization, or complaint — drafted for your review, never sent on its own
- Anything that changes the hours of care or touches the care plan
Always human
The decisions that stay yours, always.
- The in-home assessment and every caregiver match — those belong to your care manager
- Anything clinical: medication, condition, and health questions route to your care team or the client's providers, never answered
- Recruiting, screening, training, supervising, and letting go of caregivers
- Hands-on care and every safety judgment in the home
The full rulebook — approvals, escalation, and audit history — lives on trust and control.
Who this covers
Each one gets the same execution engine — these notes call out what actually changes.
Companion care & homemaker services
The service is presence and routine — conversation, meals, errands, light housekeeping — sold to adult children who mostly want reassurance. Continuity is the product: the same familiar face on the same days, and a family update that arrives without being asked for matters almost as much as the visit itself.
Personal care
Bathing, dressing, transfers, and toileting raise the stakes on matching: caregiver skills and state licensure categories get stricter, the assessment gets more detailed, and dignity makes the introduction and continuity non-negotiable. Deptly carries the logistics around those rules; the rules themselves come from you and your state.
Live-in & 24-hour care
The schedule is a rotation, not a visit — several caregivers per client, hard handoffs, and hour limits that guard against burnout. One call-out threatens round-the-clock coverage, so confirmation cadences run tighter and the escalation window on an unfilled slot is measured in minutes, not hours.
Respite care
Here the customer is the family caregiver, and the engagement is short and often recurring — a weekend, two weeks in summer. Speed to a first shift wins the booking, and the quiet revenue is the return: a warm check-in before holidays and vacation season, when the same family needs relief again.
Systems we commonly work in
- Phone calls & SMS on your existing agency lineConfirmed
- Email & calendarConfirmed
- WellSky Personal CarePossible
- AxisCarePossible
- AlayaCarePossible
- QuickBooksPossible
- HHAeXchange & state EVV portalsScoped in discovery
Confirmed means standard channels every business already has — phone, text, email, and calendar. Possible means the platform supports what the workflow needs. Anything marked scoped in discovery gets verified during discovery before we commit to it — Deptly works within the tools you already have, as described on how it works.
See the loop close
Every proof item on this site is labeled for exactly what it is.
A stalled care agreement becomes a Friday start of care
Deptly
The Marsh assessment was Monday and the discharge is Friday — but the service agreement and the long-term-care policy details are still outstanding. The stall gets flagged before the deadline slips.
Wednesday 9:00 AM
Deptly → Family
Hi Karen — so glad Monday's visit with Anne went well. Two things stand between you and Friday's 8 AM start: the service agreement (link resent, about five minutes) and your mother's long-term-care policy number. Reply here if anything is confusing and we'll walk through it together.
9:05 AM
Family
Signed it just now. The policy number is on a statement at Mom's house — I can get it tomorrow morning.
6:42 PM
Deptly
Marks the agreement received, sets a gentle Thursday-morning reminder for the policy number, and confirms with the care manager that the caregiver match she approved on Tuesday still holds for Friday.
6:45 PM
Deptly → Family
Policy number received — you're all set. Dorothy will arrive Friday at 8 AM; her introduction is attached so your mother knows who to expect. We'll check in after the first shift.
Thursday 4:10 PM
- Dinbox
Owner brief
Friday evening
The Marsh start held its discharge deadline. Two outstanding documents were chased to done in 48 hours, the family heard from us at every step, and the match your care manager approved went unchanged. Nothing needed you.
More demonstrations live on proof and examples.
Questions owners ask
Deptly responds as your agency, in wording you approve — and if a family asks directly whether they're texting with a person, it doesn't pretend. What families judge at 9 PM is whether anyone answered with warmth and a next step. Conversations that need a human heart — grief, fear, a crisis involving a current client — get handed to your team quickly, with everything already gathered so the family never repeats their story.
The call-out gets acknowledged, the eligible list is pulled by your matching rules — clients served before, skills, distance, hour limits — and offers go out in your continuity order. Whoever accepts is briefed with the client's preferences and access notes, the family hears who is coming before the doorbell rings, and the schedule is updated in your system. If nobody accepts inside your window, your on-call scheduler gets the whole picture and one decision to make.
An answering service takes a message — the family is still waiting for a callback while she fills out the next agency's form. Deptly starts the actual work the same evening: intake questions asked, the discharge deadline captured, the assessment booked against your care manager's real calendar, the packet sent. And it doesn't stop at intake; the same workflows carry documents, shift confirmations, and family updates through to a verified close.
Working inside your system of record is the design rule. Deptly reads real caregiver availability and standing schedules from platforms like WellSky Personal Care, AxisCare, or AlayaCare, applies your matching and hour-limit rules, and writes the result back where your team already looks — one source of truth. Your exact setup, including how EVV requirements shape what gets recorded, is confirmed during discovery rather than assumed.
No. Shift confirmations and coverage offers run over the text messages your caregivers already use, in plain language, on the cadence you set. If your agency app is where confirmations are supposed to live, Deptly works with that instead. The point is fitting how your team actually communicates — not adding another login to a caregiver's day.
Pricing follows the scope of the workflows, the activity volume, and the systems involved — not a per-seat license. Most agencies start with one workflow, often after-hours inquiry response or shift confirmations, and expand from what the weekly brief proves. The honest comparison is against a scheduler's overtime, a coordinator hire, and the lifetime value of one case lost to voicemail. Specifics live on the pricing page and get scoped in a conversation.
Access is least-privilege: Deptly touches what a workflow needs — schedules, contact details, document status — and sensitive care information stays in your system of record. Whether HIPAA and a BAA formally apply depends on your services and payer relationships, and that gets settled plainly during discovery rather than waved away. Your data rules — who sees what, what never leaves your systems — are mapped before anything goes live.
Those two surges are the strongest case for the service — they hit exactly when your office can least absorb them. The January wave of adult-children inquiries gets answered at the same speed as a quiet Tuesday in June, and flu-season call-outs get the same coverage process at 5 AM as at noon. Volume assumptions are set during scoping and revisited when your census changes; that conversation is expected, not awkward.
Yes — respite is a returning business hiding in your records. The family that booked two weeks in March will need relief again before vacation season and the holidays, and discharged clients' families often need care again as needs progress. Deptly runs the check-ins you approve at the moments you choose, warm and unpushy, so the next engagement starts with a text to a family who already trusts you.
It does not get answered. The message routes to your care manager or nurse, or the family is pointed to the client's providers — a line written into your rules before launch. Scheduling, documents, and logistics are Deptly's territory; anything clinical belongs to qualified people. The family still gets a prompt, warm reply saying the right person will follow up — and then Deptly makes sure that follow-up actually happens.
You do, every time. Anything after a fall, a hospitalization, a missed visit, or a complaint is drafted for your review — nothing goes out on its own. Deptly's role in those moments is speed and completeness: gathering what happened, drafting the communication in your voice, and making sure the follow-up you approve goes out and gets acknowledged.
No. Hiring, screening, training, and supervising caregivers stays entirely with you — that's the heart of the agency. What Deptly reduces is the churn pressure around your caregivers: confirmed shifts, fewer surprise scrambles, a real briefing before a new client. Recruiting-adjacent logistics, like scheduling the interviews you've already arranged and chasing onboarding paperwork, can be scoped as a workflow if you want them.
No pitch, just a straight read
Talk through how this would work in your business
Walk through how the work actually moves in your business and hear exactly what Deptly would carry first — including an honest no if the fit is not there.