BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Union County High School graduate Justin Hanson returned to Lake Butler on Tuesday, April 22, to give the Rotary Club an overview of how his company helps seniors with daily tasks.
Hanson is the operating director for the Gainesville office of Cornerstone Caregiving, a Waco, Texas-based in-home care company, launched in 2020. He said Cornerstone provides non-medical assistance to seniors.
“We might come in and help Mom or Dad with getting a shower,” he said, “helping meal preparation, maybe just having a light meal, light housekeeping. We can provide transportation.”
Accelerated growth
Hanson said his employer has experienced explosive growth in the Sunshine State over the last eight months.
“When I started my office on July 1 of last year,” he said, “we had three offices in the state of Florida. “Just two weeks ago, we started to hire for our 14th office. In less than a year, we’ve gone from 147 offices nationwide to the goal by the end of this December (to) have over 350 offices. From my understanding of what we’ve been told from corporate, we’re the fastest-growing private in-home care company in the nation.”
Hanson’s Gainesville office serves 11 counties, including Union and Bradford, but not Clay. He said the firm is not yet licensed by the state to operate there.
Hanson said his caregivers can remind their clients to take medications but may not assist them in taking the drugs.
“We can’t put on a band-aid,” he said. “We can’t do any type of wound care.’
No minimums, fast response
Hanson said the feature that differentiates his company from competitors like Concierge, Ovation, and Amedisys is that Cornerstone does not require minimum hours each week.
“Those companies will require a family to spend X amount of time weekly or daily in their house,” he said. “With my company, we don’t. “Our seniors, especially in our rural communities…most of the time what I have run into is, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad need some help, but we can’t afford 20 hours.’”
Hanson said that another strength of his company is a fast response time.
“I will guarantee 24 hours from the time you call me and say you need something or need services to the time we get the agreement signed, we can go ahead and start within 24 hours,” he said. “That’s my guarantee. The fastest time we’ve ever been able to do is 47 minutes.”
Hanson added that one problem in in-home care is missed shifts.
“I will also guarantee that we’re not going to miss a shift,” he said. “I might have to bump a shift back a little bit. Myself, as well as one of my other managers, have gone through all the state requirements to provide the same service that my caregivers can provide, so if I have to fill in, I’ve personally done that. We don’t miss shifts whatsoever.”
He added that consistency is important to clients, especially those in cognitive decline, like those with dementia.
‘Go even further for our veterans’
Hanson said many of the clients his company serves in Alachua and surrounding counties are veterans, because Cornerstone is Veterans Administration contracted, and the VA pays for in-home services.
The Brooker native said that as a military brat and the grandson of a 32-year Air Force veteran, service members have a special place in his heart.
“I go above and beyond for all of our clients,” he said, “but I would not be a hundred percent truthful if I said I didn’t go even further for our veterans. In this community, in the rural areas…the majority of our care is to our veterans.”
