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Nick Bonitatibus
AI can save home care agencies time, but only when it’s solving the right problems.
In this interview, Aaron Marcum, founder of Home Care Pulse and now a partner at Riverside Home Care, shares how his team is actually using AI, from making better hiring and people decisions to turning hours of work into minutes.
He also explains why agency owners should look at the technology they already have before subscribing to another AI tool.
If you're trying to figure out where AI can actually make a difference in your home care agency, watch or read below.
AI can save home care agencies significant time. But buying more AI software is not necessarily the best place to start.
That was one of the clearest lessons from our conversation with Aaron Marcum, founder of Home Care Pulse and creator of the Best of Home Care Awards and Home Care Benchmarking Study.
Today, Aaron is a partner at Riverside Home Care, where the team is building toward a $100 million brand impacting 10,000 lives across eight states. AI is already part of how his team hires, makes people decisions, analyzes information, and reduces repetitive work.
His advice to agency owners is practical: before subscribing to another AI tool, understand what your current technology can already do.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the conversation.
One of Aaron’s rules for his team is simple: do not lose your ability to think.
It is easy to give AI a problem and ask, “What should I do?”
Aaron approaches it differently.
When he has an important hiring, personnel, or business decision to make, he asks AI to interview him one question at a time.
He gives it context about the situation, including relevant employee assessments or other information, then lets AI ask questions that force him to think more deeply.
Only after working through those questions does he ask AI to help develop a recommendation or plan.
The goal is to keep human judgment in the driver’s seat.
Instead of asking:
“What should I do?”
Try:
“Interview me one question at a time to help me think through this decision.”
It is a small change in how you use AI, but it can produce a much more thoughtful result.
Home care is a people business, so it is understandable that agency owners may be cautious about using AI in hiring and employee management.
Aaron sees AI as a way to support stronger human connections.
At Riverside, the team uses an AI-powered process called Guiding Truths. New team members answer nine questions designed to uncover what matters most to them. AI then uses those answers to develop personal Guiding Truth statements.
This gives Riverside another way to understand the person behind the job description.
Try Aaron's Guiding Truths AI tool, free:https://rivhc.com/guiding-truths-gate/
The company also combines employee assessments into what it calls a Guiding Genius report, helping leadership understand what someone may naturally be wired to do.
That information can help leaders think more carefully about how someone is managed, what responsibilities fit their strengths, and where they may need additional support.
AI is not making those people decisions. It is helping leaders organize and understand more information before making them.
AI can also help agencies make better use of information they already collect.
Consider client surveys and reviews.
Instead of looking at each piece of feedback individually, an agency could give AI feedback from the previous 180 days and ask it to identify recurring themes.
What problems keep appearing? What is improving? What issues deserve more attention?
From there, owners can use Aaron’s interview approach again.
Give AI the information, ask it to identify the most important patterns, and then have it interview you one question at a time about how your agency could respond.
The value is not simply generating an answer. It is making existing data easier to understand and act on.
This may be Aaron’s most important recommendation for home care agency owners getting started with AI.
Before buying another AI service, find out what your current software can already do.
Home care scheduling and management platforms continue to add AI and automation features. Yet many agencies only use a fraction of the capabilities already available to them.
Aaron recommends talking directly with your software provider.
Tell them what outcome you are trying to achieve. Ask what AI capabilities are available. Have them show you what your existing system can automate or improve.
Otherwise, you could spend months paying for another AI service only to discover that your current software could already handle the task.
Adding too many disconnected tools creates another problem: complexity.
More software does not automatically create a more efficient agency. Without a clear strategy, it can create a complicated technology stack that employees do not fully use.
Start with the technology already at the center of your agency. Learn what it can do. Then add another tool only when you have identified a clear gap.
Aaron also uses a simple framework for delegating work to AI: the 10-80-10 rule.
You own the first 10%.
That means defining the vision, providing context, setting expectations, and explaining what a successful outcome looks like.
AI handles much of the middle 80% of the work.
Then you return for the final 10% to review, refine, and make sure the result meets your standards.
The mistake is giving AI responsibility for the first 10%.
If AI is deciding what the goal should be, you have handed over the part that requires your experience and judgment.
Aaron applied this approach after completing a week-long M&A course at Wharton. He had a large amount of educational material and wanted to develop a stronger acquisition integration process.
Instead of manually processing everything himself, he gave the material to Claude, explained what he wanted the finished process to accomplish, and used AI to help build it.
Aaron estimates the process saved him weeks of work.
AI handled the heavy lifting, but the direction still came from him.
Riverside uses a similar system for presentations.
During his Home Care Pulse years, Aaron estimates he spent around eight hours a week building PowerPoints.
Today, his team can provide AI with the objective, desired outcome, existing training materials, previous content, and brand information. AI then handles much of the presentation development.
Aaron reviews the final output, but the hours of manual production have largely disappeared.
The important lesson is not that AI can create slides.
It works because the team has built a repeatable process around the technology.
They know what information AI needs, what the finished product should look like, and where human review belongs.
As Aaron explains, AI will not solve your problems if you do not have systems.
If your home care agency is new to AI, you do not need to overhaul your operation or subscribe to a long list of platforms.
Start small.
First, learn what your current scheduling and agency management software can already do.
Next, get comfortable using a general-purpose AI tool on real business problems. Try having it interview you instead of immediately asking it for answers.
Then identify one repetitive task that consumes too much of your team’s time.
Define the outcome you want, provide the right information, let AI handle the middle of the process, and review the result yourself.
Once that works, move to the next opportunity.
The goal is not to use more AI.
The goal is to use AI where it genuinely improves the way your agency operates.
The biggest opportunity for home care agencies is not replacing people with technology.
It is removing work that does not require people so your team has more time for the work that does.
AI can analyze information, identify patterns, organize knowledge, build first drafts, and reduce repetitive administrative work.
But agency leaders still need to provide the judgment, context, and direction.
Before buying another AI platform, understand your systems. Learn what your current technology can do. Identify the actual problem you want to solve.
Website and weekly insights: https://www.aaronmarcum.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-marcum/
Riverside Home Care: https://rivhc.com
Breakaway365: https://breakaway365.com
Book: EntreThrive: The Entrepreneur's Eight Laws to Accelerate Financial Freedom While Creating the Good Life
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