Newsletter
Home Care Post Bulletin – January 2026
When Water Is Forgotten: Jelly Drops Bring Innovation to Hydration
Caring for older adults — especially those living with memory loss, dementia, or other cognitive challenges — often involves paying attention to some of their basic needs, such as eating, taking medicine, and resting.
Yet one need that’s surprisingly easy to overlook is hydration.
It’s not always obvious when someone is dehydrated, which can be life threatening – especially for individuals who forget to drink, struggle to swallow, or resist traditional fluids.
That’s where Jelly Drops come in — an idea born out of Lewis Hornby’s love for his grandmother.
When the London, England resident created his original recipe several years ago, his sights were set on helping his grandmother after she almost died from a lack of water.
He never envisioned a simple recipe he made in his kitchen would become the foundation for a finger snack that would be sold on multiple continents, making a huge difference in the lives of older people – and for their caregivers.
Several years later, however, Jelly Drops have helped over 100,000 customers and over 2 million Jelly Drops are eaten per month.
Hornby’s journey to starting Jelly Drops began in 2018. He was inspired by a deeply personal experience.
His grandmother, “Granny Pat” — who had dementia — was hospitalized after becoming severely dehydrated. At first, caregivers thought she was dying.
But after receiving IV fluids, she returned to being responsive and happy. The contrast shocked Hornby.
“We were told to expect the worst; a day later, she was back,” he recalled.
That moment underscored just how dramatic the difference hydration (or lack of it) can make – and to this day, the memory remains jarring.
“She was completely unresponsive,” he said. “But after getting fluids, she was fine.”
N.J.’s Direct Care Workforce Strategic Plan to Strengthen Recruitment, Retention and Training
New Jersey Human Services, in collaboration with seven state agencies, released the New Jersey Direct Care Workforce Strategic Plan last week. The plan outlines 40 strategies aimed at strengthening, expanding, and stabilizing the direct care workforce.
View the full plan here.
Sarah M. Adelman, commissioner at the New Jersey Department of Human Services, said in a post on LinkedIn, “Direct care workers are a vital part of our state economy. The care sector makes independence possible for hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans, and their work is fundamental to the health, safety, and dignity of the people we serve at NJ DHS.”
She continued, “That is why — in partnership with seven other state agencies — last week New Jersey announced the release of its DIRECT CARE WORKFORCE STRATEGIC PLAN, a comprehensive roadmap to support, grow, and stabilize the workforce that provides essential care to older adults, individuals with disabilities, and residents with behavioral health needs.
Americare Will Return $45M in Unpaid Wages to Thousands of Home Care Aides
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a landmark settlement with Americare, a New York City home care services agency, for underpaying thousands of home health aides and defrauding the Medicaid program.
An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General found that Americare failed to provide home health aides the compensation they were owed under the wage parity law while continuing to unlawfully seek Medicaid reimbursement. Under the agreement, Americare will deliver nearly $45 million in unpaid wages to thousands of home health aides who worked for the company between 2014 and 2020 and pay an additional $10 million to New York’s Medicaid program to resolve related state and federal False Claims Act violations. The combined $55 million settlement is the largest wage parity agreement ever secured by OAG.
“Home health aides work tirelessly to care for our most vulnerable neighbors every single day,” said Attorney General James. “Americare underpaid these workers for years, violating the law and cheating taxpayers. Today’s agreement returns nearly $55 million to the selfless individuals who earned it and to the Medicaid program they serve. My office will continue to fight for every dollar owed to New Yorkers and ensure no company profits by stealing from workers or from Medicaid.”
In a statement, an Americare spokesperson said, “We deeply regret that we were unable to fully satisfy our wage parity obligations for a period of time due to significant financial challenges that could have compromised our ability to continue serving the patients who rely on us for care. Our ability to achieve our mission of providing patients with high-quality healthcare in the comfort of their own homes depends entirely on the dedication and hard work of our home health aides.
Cole Imperi and the Future of Thanatology: Why Home Care Belongs in the Conversation
When Cole Imperi boarded one of the last flights out of New York City in March 2020, she didn’t know she was heading home to launch a movement – one that includes home care professionals.
At the time, she was deep into a doctoral program, juggling her work as a consultant for film and television productions — advising on the accuracy of how death and grief were portrayed on screen. Then the world shut down.
“I got back home and said to myself, ‘I’m not going anywhere for a while. What can I do to help?’” Imperi recalled. “So, I offered to host a free Zoom lecture on how to respond to crisis and collective grief from a thanatological perspective.”
She made a quick post on Instagram, expecting maybe a dozen people to show up. “I didn’t even have makeup on,” she laughed. “But it went viral overnight.”
That first online session drew hundreds of participants, sparking what would become the School of American Thanatology, which she founded in March 2020. What began as an impromptu act of service during the pandemic has grown into a respected global institution with students in more than 30 countries — with many of the attendees coming from the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The school has quickly gained a reputation for bridging the gap between funeral service, health care institutions and the public conversation about death, with home care professionals “very much in the mix,” she said.
“Some of our students have retired from a professional career like nursing and end up working part time in the home care field,” she said. “They take thanatology classes to be better equipped to navigate death, but most importantly grief, especially shadowlosses.”
How One Small Address Mistake Can Quietly Kill Your Home Care Agency’s Google Visibility
By Welton Hong, founder and CEO of Senior Care Marketing Max
Last week, a home care agency owner called me in an absolute panic after his Google listing disappeared overnight.
No warning. No email. No obvious violation.
When I took his call, I was just getting my day started with a cup of coffee – it was 5 a.m. in Las Vegas and he was on the East Coast, so he apparently called me as soon as he got to his office.
My first message was simple: Slow down, take a deep breath and calm down.
I told him I’d investigate it and call him back.
A quick check and some research gave me the answers I needed, and a half hour later, I returned his call.
He picked up on the first ring.
I recapped what I knew: His agency had been ranking well and calls had been steady, but suddenly he heard silence.
The little poking around I had done had shown me what happened: Someone had updated his business address to a virtual office to expand visibility into a nearby city. That single change triggered not just a listing removal, but a broader suspension across the owner’s Google account.
Oh, that was me … did I make a mistake, he asked.
I gave him an honest answer: Yes, he had made a mistake, and I wish he had called me ahead of time, because I would have advised him against doing it.
But at least he had called me after the fact, so I wasn’t too hard on him.
The truth is, however, this scenario is far more common in home care than most providers realize.
For agencies that depend on local search to reach families in need, how and where you list your business location on Google is not a minor detail — it is a foundational decision that directly affects visibility, trust and compliance.
In this article, I’ll outline some of the main points I shared with the owner, who I consider a friend. I worked with him to resolve the problem.
What Home Care Agencies Must Know About Reviews in the Age of AI
By Welton Hong, founder and CEO of Senior Care Marketing Max
A home care agency owner in Ohio recently shared a story that immediately caught my attention.
A family contacted his agency to arrange in-home support for an elderly parent. During the conversation, they mentioned they had chosen his company because “ChatGPT said you were one of the best-reviewed home care providers nearby.”
He was grateful — but also genuinely surprised. He had always assumed most inquiries came from referrals, hospital discharge planners, or traditional online search. After the call, he opened his laptop and asked ChatGPT the same question the family had asked: “Which home care agencies have the best reputation near me?”
Sure enough, his agency appeared in the results. But what stood out even more was why it appeared.
The AI wasn’t relying on his website or industry directories, and it wasn’t even drawing primarily from Google reviews. Instead, the recommendation leaned heavily on ratings and feedback from a small group of major consumer review sites — platforms he hadn’t paid serious attention to in years.
The takeaway was unmistakable: As more families use AI tools to begin their search for in-home care, the review platforms where your agency is rated play a direct role in whether you appear in these recommendations at all.
CEO of Home Health Care Company Arrested in Alleged $7M Fraud
The CEO of a Fresno-based home health care company was arrested at San Francisco International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Nigeria. He is charged in a criminal complaint alleging that he fraudulently obtained more than $7 million in payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs for services that were never actually rendered, including care purportedly rendered to veterans weeks after they had died, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California announced.
According to court documents, between December 2019 and July 2024, Cashmir Chinedu Luke, believed to be 66, of Antioch, operated Four Corners Health LLC. That entity provided unskilled in-home nursing and day-to-day care for elderly VA beneficiaries under the Veterans Community Care Program.
Four Corners provided services in Fresno, Tulare, Merced, Mariposa, Madera, San Francisco, and Contra Costa Counties. Luke engaged in a five-year scheme to bill the VA for hours of care that were not actually rendered to veterans. Luke caused Four Corners to submit approximately 10,000 individual false claims of care provided that caused the VA, through its third-party benefits administrator, to reimburse Four Corners $7 million for duplicate claims for care actually provided, claims for days caretakers were not present with veterans, claims for hours of care beyond those actually worked by caretakers, and claims of care for veterans who were actually dead.