What was holding hiring back
Better Home Health Care Agency is a home care agency in New York with offices in Forest Hills and Rockville Centre. It hires CNAs, HHAs and PCAs, and recruits through Indeed and MyCNAJobs. Val, the agency's Director of Human Resources, leads the project with her recruiting team.
Before Care Hero, applicants were screened by a third-party virtual recruiter, and the team followed the pipeline in spreadsheets. Two offices shared one Indeed post, so applicants had to be routed by location.
Many applicants still need HHA or PCA training, which takes 16 days, so hires only appear after certification. The team told us the biggest barrier is follow-through: applicants who go quiet, miss a step, or drop out of a training class.
What changed
Care Hero went live on July 17, 2026, after a paid pilot. Every new applicant gets a message within minutes and calls in to a short AI phone interview whenever it suits them.
- Every applicant reached within minutes, 24/7. Evenings and weekends included, when many applicants, who are in training or working another job, are free to talk.
- Screening on the agency's own questions. The pilot began with customized screening questions for CNA, HHA and PCA roles, covering HHA certification, office fit and location.
- A live pipeline instead of a spreadsheet. Val and the recruiters see every candidate and where they stand.
- A teammate for the recruiters, not a replacement. Their time goes to qualified candidates and the conversations only a person can have.
The numbers
The agency's earlier process compared with Care Hero since go-live:
| Metric | Before | With Care Hero (Jul 17 to Oct 29, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| First screening | Third-party virtual recruiter | AI phone interview, available 24/7 |
| AI phone interviews | None | 314 phone interviews completed by the AI |
| Speed of completed interviews | No baseline | 45.8% of completed AI interviews finished within 1 hour of applying |
| Interviews after hours | No baseline | 49.4% |
| Pipeline visibility | Spreadsheet reporting | Live pipeline for Val and the recruiters |
No before numbers were provided by the agency.
Val and her team told us that candidate quality and clarity were notably better than with their previous third-party recruiter, and that the transparent pipeline beats the old spreadsheet reporting.
Why this matters for New York agencies
Many aides who apply to a New York home care agency are still in training, working another job, or both. They are free after a shift, in the evening or on a weekend, not during office hours. An interview that waits for the next business day can lose them.
Better Home Health moved the first conversation to the moment the applicant applies. Nearly half of the AI phone interviews happen after hours, and the team reported on October 5 that over half of September's interviews did too.
From first call to a live pipeline
- July 8: scoping. Goals: full pipeline visibility and custom screening questions.
- July 13: kickoff. Paid pilot kickoff.
- July 17: live. First AI phone interviews run.
- July 28: first check-in. Clearer, better-qualified candidates than with the prior recruiter; the live pipeline beats the old spreadsheet.
- October 5: check-in. Over half of September's interviews happened after hours; follow-through is the next focus.