Home care owners often mention wanting to serve their community. Carlos Camacho, owner of Always Best Care Senior Services – Home Care Services in El Paso, is actually doing it. The way he set up his program is also a masterclass in smart growth.
El Paso, Texas is a low-income city with a poverty rate higher than the national average. Much of the area’s senior population is on Medicaid, which in Texas reimburses at rates that make it difficult for agencies to operate sustainably. The seniors not on Medicaid often made too much income to qualify for Medicaid, though not nearly enough to afford the care they actually need. For years, Carlos watched his clients who needed 20 or 30 hours of care a week only able to pay for four. He knew there was a solution out there.
Then he saw a Sensi presentation at a national conference.
“We finally had a way to provide care to somebody who couldn’t afford what they really needed,” Carlos says. “They maybe needed somebody there twice the amount of hours that they could afford, and now we had an option for that.”
Sensi became the foundation of his go-to-market strategy. And, the care intelligence works as a growth agent for Always Best Care, El Paso.
The ‘get in the door’ model
Before Sensi, Carlos’s agency had a four-hour minimum shift policy. He found clients who could only afford one shift a week weren’t a great fit, since shorter engagements rarely grew into the longer relationships an agency needs to sustain revenue.
Carlos realized Always Best Care, El Paso could use Sensi to change the math. He offered Sensi’s AI-powered care intelligence as a free add-on to clients who signed up for even a single four-hour shift per week. The idea was simple: use technology to extend the agency’s presence in the home between caregiver visits, prove the value of the relationship, and let the account grow organically.
“You may be intimidated by having to hire us for 12 hours a week, or maybe you need 24/7 care,” Carlos explains. “But if you give us an opportunity for four hours a week, we will offer you Sensi for free.”
Sensi’s AI care intelligence runs 24/7 in the home. It doesn’t use cameras nor does it require any action from the senior. What it does is detect falls, changes in activity, cognitive shifts, and other significant events. When something happens, care teams get a real-time alert so they can respond fast, even when a caregiver is not present.
The pitch landed. “I’ve seen it time and time again that we can get in the door, show the value of what we offer, show the commitment from our operations team, then those accounts will all grow,” Carlos says.
Henry: From 4 hours to 85
One story crystallizes the model better than any slide deck could.
When Carlos and his wife Karla expanded their agency into Las Cruces, New Mexico, a market of around 150,000 people with a large retirement community, they brought on a client named Henry for only four hours of care per week. The draw for Henry and his family was Sensi, which came bundled with the engagement.
As the care relationship developed, the team learned Henry was a veteran. That discovery meant there were possible VA funds Henry wasn’t using. Carlos and his team identified programs and connected Henry with the VA’s Aid and Attendance benefit, a pension supplement for veterans who need help with daily activities.
Henry qualified. The benefit covered 65 hours of care per week, and as part of his eligibility requirements, he paid for an additional 20 hours out of pocket. Four hours became 85, in a matter of months, because the agency got in the door and paid attention.
“That was all because Sensi got us in the door,” Carlos says.
But the story does not stop there. On a weekend without a caregiver, Henry had a fall. Sensi generated an alert. The care team responded quickly and called Henry’s son, who was blown away. The pods were so unintrusive, he had forgotten Sensi was in the home.
The next day, a physical therapist came to Henry’s home for a scheduled visit. Henry’s son told the PT what had happened and how the agency had called within minutes of the fall. The PT’s response? “I have a few clients that would really benefit from this.” New referrals followed.
“It’s a win-win situation for us,” Carlos says.
Why this matters for your agency
Carlos’s approach is worth copying because it solves a problem most agencies accept as unsolvable: the clients who need care but cannot afford it at the volumes that make traditional engagement worthwhile.
Instead of asking a low-income family to commit to a care plan they can’t afford, Carlos offers Sensi as a bridge. The platform provides genuine, documented safety value between caregiver visits. Families see it. Referral sources, the physicians, physical therapists, case managers, notice it too.
“There has not been one doctor, nurse, or case manager who doesn’t say, ‘It does what?'” Carlos says. “It really opens their eyes. When you bring in the technology and that differentiator, it makes a massive difference. It makes my job easier to promote the business.”
Carlos is also clear he didn’t set up Sensi and then sit back. The agency has to act on the data in the care reports. When Sensi flagged a client who had taken expired medication, the care team already knew about the medication and had tried to remove it. The alert gave them documentation to share with the home health provider and finally get the issue resolved. When audio cues indicate a fall is imminent, the team calls immediately.
“Those things are more valuable to me,” Carlos says. “Being able to prevent something like that… I know Sensi would have helped him, guaranteed.”
His wife Karla, who runs the Las Cruces location, echoes the on-the-ground reality: “Sensi is getting us in the door, and once we’re in there, we are increasing hours. It’s been really, really good.”
The mindset behind it
Carlos came to home care from a mechanical engineering background. He thinks in systems. When he saw Sensi presented, he did not wait for a case study or a competitor to prove the model. He moved.
“I think that’s important for us as leaders and business owners — knowing what’s next and being able to recognize those opportunities, take advantage of them, and embrace them when they’re so new that it scares most people away,” he says.
His mentor’s advice has stayed with him: “Just do it. Start now and make changes along the way.”
That philosophy shows up in how he frames his agency’s role in the care ecosystem, too. Home care, in his view, is not a support service. It is the connective tissue that holds a senior’s entire care plan together.
“We are the glue that ties all of that together,” Carlos says. “We make sure that person’s goal — to age at home in a safe, healthy manner — comes to life. We can assure that no one else can.”
Want to see how Sensi can help your agency serve more clients and grow your care hours? Book a demo.
FAQs
AI-powered virtual care tools like Sensi extend a care agency’s presence in the home between caregiver visits at a lower cost than additional staffing hours. This allows agencies to serve seniors who can only afford limited in-person care while still providing a meaningful safety net.
The Aid and Attendance benefit is a VA pension supplement available to veterans who need help with daily activities, including personal care. It can increase the number of funded care hours available to a veteran client.
Sensi uses audio AI technology and care intelligence in the home environment to create a baseline to detect significant events: falls, changes in activity patterns, cognitive shifts, and more. It requires no cameras, no buttons, and no action from the senior. When a notable care event is detected, the care team receives a real-time alert so they can respond quickly.
Yes. When referral sources: physicians, physical therapists, discharge planners, see documented care data and hear stories of rapid response to client events, it changes the conversation. As Carlos’s experience with Henry’s physical therapist shows, a single well-handled incident can generate client referrals.
