- Company
- Elite Home Care
- Website
- elitehomecaresc.com
- Scheduling system
- WellSky
- Hired Phoebe
- October 2025
Ashley Watts is a nurse practitioner by trade who oversees home-care operations at Elite Home Care in South Carolina. In the interview, she described a business running roughly 13,000 hours of care a week with about 900 caregivers across 13 home-care locations, alongside 15 day centers and a transportation operation.
In the two months before the interview, Phoebe had filled about 125 shifts for Elite. Across the locations already live, Phoebe data showed that a caregiver picked up a shift in 10 to 14 minutes on average, depending on the location.
Elite did not bring Phoebe into all 13 home-care locations at once. The team started with its flagship Spartanburg office, expanded into two more large offices after seeing the results, and then decided to take Phoebe company-wide.
"Once we saw that it was a really big hit and very successful, we decided to build it into our Greer and Laurens locations. We saw that our shifts were getting filled faster, that we were having to make fewer phone calls, and that they were successfully getting filled. It really improved our coverage, specifically for call-outs, which was one of our biggest challenges."
— Ashley Watts, Elite Home Care
At the time of the interview, five locations were live and the rollout to the rest was underway.
The results behind the rollout
| What changed | |
|---|---|
| Shifts filled | Phoebe filled about 125 shifts for Elite in the two months before the interview |
| Pickup time | Across live locations, a caregiver picked up a shift in 10 to 14 minutes on average, depending on the location |
| Rollout | One flagship office expanded to three large offices; by the interview, five locations were live and all 13 home-care locations were planned |
| Call-out coverage | Shifts filled faster, with fewer calls and more successful coverage |
| Scheduling capacity | The initial three offices moved from three full-time schedulers to one dedicated scheduler, with other office staff using Phoebe as part of scheduling |
| Caregiver response | Caregivers preferred the more complete outreach after some had blocked messages from the previous tool |
The challenge: call-outs turn one scheduler into a phone bank
Call-outs were the clearest test for Elite. At offices still handling them manually, a scheduler worked through caregivers one at a time: check availability, explain the care plan, answer questions, and then start over when the fit was wrong.
Ashley had seen the cost of that workflow the day before the interview. An important client needed replacement coverage, and the scheduler made nearly 20 calls before filling the shift.
"Sometimes she would get the caregiver on the phone, go through availability and the care plan, and spend several minutes only for it not to be a fruitful conversation. You multiply that volume of work, and that's tremendous."
At seven to eight minutes per call, that example works out to roughly two and a half hours of serial outreach. At Elite's live Phoebe locations, product data showed a caregiver picking up a shift in 10 to 14 minutes on average, depending on the location.
The urgency creates a second problem. A scheduler trying to staff a shift quickly can miss a matching detail—Ashley used the example of a client who has a dog and a caregiver who is afraid of dogs. A fast yes is not useful if the match falls apart when the caregiver gets the full picture.
And while the scheduler is working the call list, the rest of the office does not stop. Clients and caregivers still call with other concerns. Those calls either wait or go to voicemail.
Why Elite started with one office
Ashley expected some hesitation from her team. A new platform meant another workflow to learn, and she wanted to make sure the ask was reasonable. Spartanburg was Elite's flagship and one of its largest offices, but it was also where Ashley could be present to help the team through the rollout.
The implementation proved easier than expected.
"The biggest thing was hesitation with the team—concern about a new technology. Are they going to be successful? Is it going to be user-friendly? But it was surprisingly very user-friendly, very easy to use."
Ashley also points to the support behind the product. Elite uses plenty of software across home care, day centers, and transportation. Her comparison is direct: when her team has a question, Phoebe responds quickly and helps them move to the next step.
Once the Spartanburg team was comfortable, Elite added Phoebe to Greer and Laurens. That gave Ashley something more useful than a demo: she could compare large offices using Phoebe with offices still working call-outs by hand.
The Phoebe offices needed fewer calls, filled shifts faster, and covered call-outs more reliably. That was enough to move from a limited test to a company-wide decision.
A different way to handle growth
Ashley is blunt about the scheduling job.
"Scheduling is a burnout role. I've seen a lot of schedulers ultimately get frustrated because they have barriers to their own success that are not their fault. It's very high burnout—a lot of calls, heavy call volume, and having to keep that patience."
Before Phoebe, Elite had three full-time schedulers working across the first three locations. Over the following six months, that moved to one dedicated scheduler, with other office staff continuing to use Phoebe as part of the scheduling workflow. The shift happened through attrition as Elite tested what its existing office teams could handle with Phoebe.
When a scheduler left, Elite did not automatically replace the role. The team kept running the offices with its existing staff and Phoebe, then watched what happened.
Hours kept growing. The offices kept growing. Elite was not losing hours, and caregivers still felt they were getting the contact and engagement they needed.
That changed the staffing model. Instead of automatically adding another office employee whenever volume hits a threshold, Elite can add Phoebe and keep its current team focused on the work that still needs a person.
"Instead of adding a third staff member that we have to hire and train and hope stays happy and unstressed, we're not doing that anymore. We're just adding Phoebe."
The change happened through attrition. Ashley's emphasis is on keeping growth from creating another high-burnout role by default.
Less phone tag, less tension
With Phoebe, the team can start several caregiver outreaches at once and keep handling the rest of the day.
"It's definitely a less tense environment because there's not that constant stress. If there are several call-outs at the same time, they start those outreaches through Phoebe and can still be attentive to all the other calls coming in."
That affects the client experience too. Schedulers are no longer tied up working one call-out at a time, so other clients do not have to be sent to voicemail while the office searches for coverage.
"We can immediately answer the phone. We're not tied up. So I think the overall vibe in our locations is one of less stress."
The offices still waiting for Phoebe had heard the same feedback from their peers. Ashley saw that internal, scheduler-to-scheduler advocacy as another sign the company was making the right decision for its team.
Caregivers preferred the new outreach
Elite already had a way to send shift outreach before Phoebe. The problem was that caregivers did not want it. Ashley says some were blocking the messages because the outreach felt excessive and lacked the details they needed to decide whether a shift worked.
Phoebe gave them a different experience: the relevant shift information in one message, with less waiting for a scheduler to call back and explain the care plan.
"They honestly prefer it. With Phoebe, there are all the details they need in one message. If they wanted the overtime or extra hours, they saw with one look at their phone that it was the right thing."
For Ashley, that caregiver response matters as much as office efficiency. The people receiving the messages also spend less time waiting for information or getting repeated calls about shifts that do not fit.
Why Elite chose the company-wide rollout
Asked what she would tell another operator, Ashley starts with the support team, then points to the staffing math and the hours Elite no longer loses when a call-out goes unfilled.
Her conclusion is not based on a projection alone. Elite tried Phoebe in one office, expanded it to three, and compared those offices with the rest of the company before deciding to roll it out everywhere.
"The cost of Phoebe versus the ROI—not needing to layer as many staff and specified schedulers per location—is optimal. And then, lastly, not losing hours because we were unable to staff a call-out. Call-outs were where we had the struggles and the failures, and that barrier has really been removed by building Phoebe into our platforms."