In-home caregiving service pairs Charlotte seniors with ‘grandkids on demand’

A North Carolina health-tech startup that connects affordable caregivers for seniors recently expanded to Charlotte and is using college students to fill in the gap.

Through CareYaya, families can schedule in-home caregivers for certain days and times for their loved ones starting at just $15 an hour.

But these aren’t your everyday caregivers — they’re college students.

After beginning its pilot program at UNC Chapel Hill in 2022 and expanding to other universities in the Triangle, including N.C. State and Duke, CareYaya CEO Neal Shah said the company broadened its reach to UNC Charlotte.

The school’s robust nursing and biology programs, located in one of the state’s largest metropolitan areas, also led to expansion.

“We thought it was just a great school, with a huge population of people that could do this,” said Shah. “There’s a great population of people who are wonderful caregivers, are in college and want to go into the health care field.

In the last few months, more than 300 UNC Charlotte students have applied to be a part of the company, Shah said.

“Basically, the idea is to build an Uber of caregiving,” Shah said. “Working for the company is effectively a pathway program to a health care career.”

‘Grandkids on-demand’

Shah said many clients have praised the company’s efforts to provide affordable in-home care, and enjoyed that their loved ones have been able to develop intergenerational relationships with their caregivers.

“Some families even tell us it’s like ‘grandkids on-demand,’” he added. “The student caregivers are much more companion-oriented.”

UNC Charlotte sophomore Dianella Montes, a psychology major who has been working for CareYaya for a few months, said her experience has been “really rewarding.”

Montes said her first client was a former poet who was no longer able to write due to cognitive impairments. But with her help, she was able to get him to write a love poem for his wife, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

“That was the best way to start it off for me,” said Montes. “I really felt like I made a difference for him, and his wife was really happy, too.”

Though she wants to get a master’s degree in clinical psychology, Montes said CareYaya has allowed her to explore other opportunities in the health care field.

“It’s the easiest way to gain experience working with patients, especially at a young age,” Montes said. “Taking classes and learning about the subjects you’re interested in is one thing, but when you’re going out and working with patients has taught me that I really enjoy caring for people. It’s the best thing I’ve done for myself so far.”

Elderly in-home care service started with ‘personal sacrifice’

Shah, who grew up in Charlotte and attended UNC Chapel Hill and the University of Pennsylvania, moved to New York to take on a career in investment banking after college, he said.

After becoming a partner at a multi-billion dollar private equity firm in his late twenties, he started his own investment fund that focused on health care and technology.

Shortly after starting the fund, his grandparents became ill, with cancer, kidney failure and dementia.

Since Shah was still living hundreds of miles away, his mother was forced to quit her job to care for his grandparents, he said.

“The burden fell on her,” said Shah. “Due to the difficulty of getting outside care, she did it herself. What was supposed to be a few months turned into five years.”

A few years later, at the peak of his investment career, Shah said his wife was diagnosed with cancer.

“I managed her care for over three years,” Shah said. “Through rounds of chemotherapy, multiple failed surgeries, and at one point, hospitalization for over a month in a medically induced coma.”

“I just kept taking sabbaticals from my work to do it,” he added. “I had difficulty getting convenient and reliable care that I could trust.”

Shah and his wife, who has been in remission for a few years, later moved back to North Carolina to be closer to his parents, where he became “obsessed with care needs.”

More than 1.2 million people in North Carolina are family caregivers who look after a spouse or relative with a serious illness, according to Shah.

“A lot of those people are under great stress,” Shah said, adding that it disproportionately impacts women and minorities due to difficulties accessing the care market.

“Many of them are providing care for their family members at a massive personal sacrifice.”

How student caregivers are vetted

Unlike traditional home care agencies, students who work with CareYaya are not licensed caregivers and are unauthorized to provide any medical care.

“They’re here to help you with daily activities and companionship,” its website says.

However, only 20% of applicants are accepted to join, the company says

Most applicants are recommended by professors, Shah said, and have to pass background checks in order to qualify for the program. CareYaya also conducts interviews with each candidate to ensure that they’re applying for the right reasons.

“We’re really vetting them, in the one-on-one interviews, for more personality, empathy and non-monetary incentives for caregiving,” Shah said. “We really want to run, on the family side, something that’s very high-quality.”

Training is not a requirement for caregivers, but the company is working with state universities to develop training modules for future hires, a spokesperson for CareYaya told The Charlotte Observer in an email.

A low-cost elderly care option

Pricing for services provided by CareYaya starts at $15 an hour, which can be less than half the cost of traditional home care agencies, Shah said.

. “A lot of families we talk to can’t afford 30 bucks an hour, and even for the families who can, the caregiver is getting paid less than half of that, and the caregiver is often disgruntled,” Shah said.

With CareYaya’s compensation program, caregivers receive 100% of the money directly from families, Shah said.

Though the company’s services are not covered by insurance, Shah said CareYaya is in talks with two of its investors, former Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC CEO Bob Greczyn and Dr. Linda Rosenstock, board chair of the SCAN Health Plan, to get Medicare Advantage to foot the bill.

“Medicare Advantage hospitals and employers all realize that access to home-based care creates better health outcomes,” Shah said, like falls and other accidents. “If you have an elderly person at home, and you have a caregiver around, that’s very valuable because each fall could result in an ER visit that could cost thousands of dollars.”

To learn more about the company or sign up for care, visit CareYaya.org.