How Right at Home Fills Caregiver Shifts Faster with AI

Company: Right at Home (Southwest Florida) Location: Charlotte County, FL Scheduling system: WellSky

Heidi Nyvoll runs two Right at Home locations in Southwest Florida with 130 caregivers supporting 150 clients across four counties. When she adopted Phoebe as an AI scheduling assistant, she wasn't just solving a staffing problem, she was fundamentally changing how her caregivers experience work.

"With Phoebe, the caregivers can ask questions and have more of a conversation. They see that shifts are being picked up quicker. So it's not just sitting there waiting for us to call them, now they have to be more interactive."

— Heidi Nyvoll, Owner & President

The Results at a Glance

The Problem: Hours Lost to Phone Tag

Before Phoebe, filling open shifts at Right at Home was a grind. Schedulers worked through call lists one by one - dialing, leaving voicemails, waiting for callbacks, then doing it again. A single open shift could eat up 45 minutes and 20+ calls before someone said yes.

And even when caregivers did pick up, they couldn't say yes right away. They had questions:

Where's the client? What's the care plan? Are there pets? What's the gate code?

The only way to get answers was to wait for the scheduler to look it up and call back.

So caregivers stopped answering. They knew they'd need more information anyway, and the fastest path was to just wait for a live call. That left schedulers trapped in an endless loop of outreach, follow-up, and phone tag.

"The caregivers knew that they would need more information, so they were just expecting us to call back. The scheduler was left making maybe 20 calls for one shift."

— Heidi Nyvoll

The Solution: An AI Scheduling Teammate

Unlike traditional scheduling automation that simply sends notifications, Phoebe's AI scheduler actively participates in the scheduling workflow.

It doesn't just blast out shift alerts. It has conversations with caregivers, answers their questions in real-time, and intelligently matches shifts based on caregiver preferences and qualifications.

When a caregiver receives a shift offer from Phoebe, they can text back with questions and get instant answers pulled directly from the client's care plan in WellSky:

Caregiver: "Where is this client located?" Phoebe: "In Port Charlotte. About 15 minutes from your last shift location."

Caregiver: "What's their care plan?" Phoebe: "Light housekeeping, meal prep, and companionship. Client has two cats but I don't see any allergies listed in your profile."

Caregiver: "I'm not available on Tuesdays." Phoebe: "Got it. Would you like to see other shifts? We have openings Wednesday and Thursday."

This is the key difference between an AI scheduling teammate and traditional automation: the AI handles the repetitive outreach and the back-and-forth conversation that human schedulers used to manage manually.

The Results: How Long Does It Take to Fill a Caregiver Shift with AI?

Shifts Fill in Minutes - Not Hours

Before Phoebe, filling a single shift could take 45 minutes or more as schedulers worked through their call list one by one. With Phoebe reaching out to 20+ qualified caregivers simultaneously, shifts that once took nearly an hour now get picked up in under 15 minutes.

"I just had one of my schedulers today tell me that they love the fact that they had one client who had three days open and they were able to send out that one text and someone picked them all up like right away."

— Aubrey Chavez, Director of Operations

And because Phoebe can handle multiple conversations at once, caregivers don't feel like they're competing in a race. They get real-time updates:

• "This shift just got filled, but we have others available."
• "You're confirmed for Tuesday. Would you also like Thursday?"

New Hires Get Work Immediately

One of the biggest retention killers in home care? Hiring a caregiver, then never calling them with shifts. They're technically "active" but not actually earning a paycheck.

Phoebe solves this. After a recent orientation that ran long, the scheduler sent shift offers through Phoebe to a brand-new caregiver. By the end of the day, the caregiver had a full schedule - without ever needing to sit down with the scheduler.

"She left orientation basically with a full schedule and had the care plan, knew exactly what she needed. The scheduler checked up on her today to make sure everything was good, but she's very happy because she now has a full schedule."

— Aubrey Chavez

Shift Confirmations That Actually Get Read

For most home care agencies, shift reminders are one-way messages. Generic texts from unfamiliar numbers or push notifications that get buried alongside every other alert on a caregiver's phone. Caregivers can't reply, can't ask questions, and can't confirm on their terms. So they do the only logical thing: ignore them.

Phoebe's reminders come from a consistent, personalized number. Caregivers know it's Phoebe. They respond. They confirm. And they ask follow-up questions if they need to.

"When it comes through Phoebe, it looks like it's a personalized text from Phoebe and they're responding back and confirming it. It's more of a personal, 'Hey, you have this shift coming up tomorrow, don't forget.'"

— Aubrey Chavez

The result? Fewer no-shows. Fewer last-minute scrambles. More consistent coverage.

Adoption: From Skepticism to Advocacy

Not every caregiver embraced AI immediately. Some older caregivers were resistant: "This is AI. I don't want to use it."

The solution? Training and transparency.

Right at Home and Phoebe worked together to create a presentation explaining what Phoebe could do and how it would make caregivers' lives easier. They ended the training with a live demo - watching someone text Phoebe and get real-time answers.

The same training became part of new hire orientation. By the time caregivers started working, texting Phoebe felt natural.

"We created a presentation where we go over all that Phoebe can help them with to make their lives a little easier. We end it with a live call with Phoebe so you can see how to interact."

— Aubrey Chavez

The breakthrough? When caregivers realized they could ask questions.

"Letting them know they can ask Phoebe questions was a really big help. At first they were kind of like, 'Who am I talking to?' But once they realize, 'I can ask about the location, I can ask about what this client needs,' then they're more apt to want to talk to Phoebe."

— Aubrey Chavez

One caregiver even came into the office asking, "Where is Phoebe?" They thought Phoebe was a person on the team.

How to Scale a Home Care Agency Without Hiring More Staff

Right at Home runs 150 clients with 130 caregivers across four counties. At that scale, most agencies need at least two full-time schedulers.

Right at Home has one lead scheduler, plus Phoebe.

"Based on the hours we are billing, we should probably have had at least two, if not more full-time schedulers. But we have one lead scheduler and then Phoebe."

— Heidi Nyvoll

This is the scalability advantage of an AI scheduling teammate: you can grow revenue without proportionally growing administrative headcount.

That's not about cutting jobs. It's about scaling without adding them. The efficiency gains let Right at Home reinvest in other areas:

• More care managers for client relationships
• On-site training and field support for caregivers
• Marketing and business development

For agencies looking to grow, this represents a fundamentally different operational model. Instead of asking "How many schedulers do we need for 200 clients?" the question becomes "What can we accomplish with the team we already have?"

The answer, with an AI scheduling teammate: significantly more.

Looking Ahead

What excites Heidi and Aubrey most is how quickly Phoebe is evolving. New capabilities are shipping regularly, and the team at Right at Home sees Phoebe becoming an even deeper part of how they operate.

"We are just scratching the surface of AI today. I'm very excited to see where it takes us. It can definitely make our processes so much better and streamline them."

— Heidi Nyvoll

The Bottom Line

Right at Home's experience demonstrates a critical truth about AI in home care.

Caregivers get instant answers to their questions. They feel informed, empowered, and trusted. Schedulers spend less time on phone tag and more time on relationships. Clients get better coverage because shifts fill faster and more reliably.

And the agency operates more efficiently while maintaining - and improving - the quality of care that defines Right at Home.

"Technology is just a tool for us to help become even better. It's not replacing the human nature in any kind. We are working with people on all levels of this organization."

— Heidi Nyvoll

Ready to see Phoebe in action? Book a demo or email dave@phoebe.work to discuss your scheduling challenges.