Aging-In-Place Alternatives: How UpsideHōM, CarePods Are Disrupting Traditional Senior Care Models

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Seniors’ overwhelming preference to receive care and remain in their homes has opened the door for companies looking to disrupt the aging-in-place sector.

One startup, UpsideHōM, is doing this with its tech-enabled co-living space for older adults. As part of its business model, the company creates co-living environments by partnering with existing apartment complexes and leasing individual units — or blocks of units.

Founded in February of last year, UpsideHōM also vets the units to ensure safety and works with interior designers to furnish its spaces.

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In July, the Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based company raised a $2.25 million seed round, co-led by Triple Impact Capital and Freestyle Capital, with participation from Techstars. The fundraising round accounted for just a small portion of the $2.5 billion that investors have pumped into elder care and home health startups over the past five years.

Source: Crunchbase News

“We’ve already grown 1,000% in the first half of 2021,” Jake Rothstein, founder and CEO of UpsideHōM, told Home Health Care News. “We see a tremendous amount of expansion ahead of us. Our funding is going to help us with that expansion.”

Seniors co-living through UpsideHōM are matched with roommates with the help of the company’s software programs. Seniors also have the option of moving in as a couple, or as a group of friends.

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Once they’re moved in, seniors have access to services such as housekeeping, maintenance support, grocery delivery and meals prepared by chefs. UpsideHōM users also can take advantage of laundry services, fitness programming, recreational activities and transportation perks.

Layered on top of all that: a home manager who serves as a point of contact for accessing and coordinating all of the above.

“[These are] things that are designed to sort of duplicate the experience a person might get in a traditional senior living environment, but we’re doing it outside the walls of traditional senior living,” Rothstein said. “We like to call it supportive living versus assisted living.”

Plus, the company streamlines the payment process with a single monthly bill that includes rent, utilities and the service package.

An UpsideHōM property in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. | Photo from UpsideHōM

Additionally, UpsideHōM is in the process of introducing a tech platform that will allow seniors to communicate with the home manager and pay bills. A portion of UpsideHōM’s recent funding will go toward the development of this platform, which will enable the “seamless interaction” of all of the company’s services offerings, according to Rothstein.

Creating social engagement

One of the services coordinated by UpsideHōM is access to Papa Pals.

UpsideHōM’s connection to Papa — a membership-based companionship platform geared toward seniors — runs deeper than its current partnership and overlapping customer base. Before leaving in 2017, Rothstein was one of Papa’s co-founders.

Similar to UpsideHōM, Papa is pushing the established boundaries of traditional aging-in-place services. Rothstein’s time at the company underscored the value in addressing loneliness among seniors.

“We saw that, No. 1, older adults are lonely. Creating social engagement for them is incredibly important and very valuable, not only to the individual, but to the health care systems,” he said. “We saw the UpsideHōM model as a sort of a natural extension of what Papa was doing. There are some really tight synergies between UpsideHōM and Papa. We send Papa Pals into our units every two weeks. That’s included in the membership.”

Loneliness among seniors can often lead to adverse health outcomes — increasing risk of premature death, dementia, depression and other conditions. Roughly 25% of adults age 65 and older are socially isolated, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Ultimately, Rothstein believes the value-add of UpsideHōM is its ability to tie together multiple services, under the umbrella of a modern senior living model.

“We see a tremendous amount of expansion ahead of us.”

Jake Rothstein, founder and CEO of UpsideHōM

The CarePods model

Another company operating within the space of non-traditional aging-in-place companies is CarePods.

Former senior housing executive Katie Davis launched CarePods in 2019 with the goal of transporting the continuing care retirement community (CCRC) model into the home.

As part of its business model, CarePods groups seniors together in 25-member “pods.” Members of the pod typically live within 15 miles of each other, and these groups are looked after by a dedicated registered nurse (RN) case manager.

This clinician helps members with needs ranging from scheduling trips to the doctor to medication education.

Most people who want to age in their homes and communities lack the support to do so, according to Davis, who serves as CEO of CarePods

“To age in place, you need to be able to identify resources, you need to be able to navigate the health care environment, and it requires planning and a budget,” she told HHCN. “What our team does is meet with our clients, establish goals … in essence, we identify their vulnerabilities. Our services are designed to work in concert with each other so that we can manage chronic conditions long term in the home.”

Katie Davis-CarePods-CEO
Katie Davis, CEO of CarePods. | Photo provided by CarePods

In addition to a dedicated case manager, CarePod members also have access to a virtual assistant who helps arrange transportation via ride-hailing platform Lyft. The assistant also helps find maintenance professionals for household upkeep and other services.

Since its launch three years ago, Davis has realized that CarePods is positioned to be a great “force multiplier” for private-duty home care agencies.

“We’re a fantastic ancillary-service add,” Davis said. “We anticipate that our growth will occur by partnering with local home care agencies and helping them improve the margin on their operation — as well as creating a more comprehensive care system.”

Davis noted that in light of the COVID-19 emergency, CarePods has seen more partnership interest from home care companies.

The company has also received interest from outside investors over the years but still remains self-funded.

It is likely that more players looking to take an innovative approach to senior care and aging-in-place will step into the space in the future.

Building out a customer acquisition strategy should be top of mind for these entrepreneurs, according to Davis.

“There’s never been a more competitive time to deliver care in any capacity, in any industry, whether it be health care, home health or hospice,” she said. “It’s easy to get excited about the operational model and the type of care that we’d like to deliver to the home, but I think many people underestimate how difficult it is to reliably acquire customers at a price that is sustainable for their company.”

Davis suggests that entrepreneurs take a pilot to market in order to gauge customers’ reactions and ensure that the company has a viable business model.

“There’s never been a more competitive time to deliver care in any capacity, in any industry, whether it be health care, home health or hospice.”

Katie Davis, CEO of CarePods

Moving forward, CarePods is focused on formalizing the partnerships the company has in the works, as well as collecting market data through these relationships in order to expand the business.

“My goal would be to continue building out a more data-driven customer-acquisition model,” Davis said. “I really like to continue learning how to better leverage the unique messaging, marketing and branding that we have, and jet fuel our customer acquisition, both through partners and direct-to-consumer.”

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