When Care Goes Wrong: Own It, Fix It, Move Forward

Listen to Home Care Marketing Unfiltered with Dawn Fiala and Lisa Marsolais

You walk into a referral partner’s building expecting a routine visit.

Instead, someone pulls you aside.

Remember the caregiver your agency sent for overnight-awake care?

“We found her sleeping three times last night.”

Suddenly, this is not a marketing visit. It is a conversation about whether your agency deserves the trust someone placed in it.

That is the situation that opens this episode of Home Care Marketing Unfiltered. Dawn and Lisa discuss what happens when care does not go as planned—and the marketer may be hearing about the problem for the first time.

Their message is straightforward: Own it. Fix it. Move forward.

But moving forward means more than getting through an uncomfortable conversation. It means making things right, understanding what went wrong, and giving the people delivering care the support they need.

When a Referral Partner Speaks Up, Listen

Nobody enjoys hearing that their agency disappointed a referral partner. But Dawn makes an important observation: a strong relationship can be the reason someone tells you about a problem rather than simply stops referring.

An uncomfortable conversation gives your agency an opportunity to respond. Silence may not.

That does not make the complaint good news. It means the person is still willing to talk to you, and that willingness deserves a serious response.

This is not the moment to repeat your usual talking points about compassionate caregivers or excellent service. The referral source is describing an experience that did not match those promises.

Start there.

Own It: Address the Problem Without Getting Defensive

Dawn and Lisa talk about facing the situation directly, even when you were not involved in the scheduling decision and do not yet know exactly what happened.

Their discussion includes a simple response:

“We need to get to the bottom of this.”

That approach acknowledges the concern without pretending you already have every answer. The hosts also recognize that the office may not have known there was a problem before the referral source reported it.

Taking responsibility does not require inventing an explanation on the spot. It requires being willing to address the issue rather than distance yourself from it.

The referral partner does not need to hear an internal argument about who scheduled the shift. They need to know that your agency is taking the concern seriously.

Dawn and Lisa compare this moment to a relationship moving beyond the honeymoon stage. The easy conversations have established a connection. Now the difficult conversation shows how you respond under pressure. In their view, handling it honestly can become an opportunity to demonstrate integrity.

Fix It: An Apology Needs Action Behind It

Saying you are sorry matters. It is not the entire response.

Dawn and Lisa discuss situations in which they have credited or discounted a shift, depending on the circumstances. They also talk about correcting the staffing problem and establishing more consistent coverage moving forward. These are examples from their experience—not a single remedy they prescribe for every situation.

The larger point is that the conversation needs to move from acknowledging what happened to explaining how the agency will make things right.

A financial adjustment does not answer every concern. The person raising the issue may also need confidence in who is coming next and how the care arrangement will be handled.

The response should address the problem, not just the discomfort of discussing it.

Not Every Relationship Returns to What It Was

The episode does not pretend that a sincere apology guarantees a complete recovery.

Dawn shares another experience involving a caregiver working overnight in an assisted living community. The caregiver went into the facility’s kitchen to get food for herself and the client without permission. After being told not to do it, she did it again, and the agency let her go.

Referrals eventually resumed, but Dawn says the relationship never fully returned to what it had been. Her referral contact was willing to continue working with the agency, while that person’s manager remained upset.

That distinction matters. Your day-to-day contact may understand your response, but other people in the organization may also influence whether your agency is trusted.

Owning the problem is necessary. It does not erase what happened.

The lesson is not to become afraid of every interaction. It is to recognize that the care experience can affect a relationship well beyond the person you usually visit.

Marketing and Scheduling Need to Understand Each Other

One of the most useful parts of the conversation is what happens inside the agency.

Dawn describes how difficult it can be for scheduling staff to understand the weight of a referral relationship when they are not the ones standing in front of the social worker or the facility manager.

But she also acknowledges the reverse: from outside the scheduling department, filling a shift can look much easier than it is.

A screen may show several caregivers nearby. That does not mean they are answering their phones, available for that particular assignment, or able to follow through.

To build understanding, Dawn brought scheduling team members out on marketing visits and spent time helping with scheduling herself. Lisa also describes cross-training that helped staff understand intake and the scheduling process.

The purpose was not to prove that one department had the harder job. It was to help each team see what the other was managing.

Marketing works to earn trust. Scheduling works to put the care in place. Both need to understand what their decisions mean for the other.

And when the office already knows about a service problem, the marketer should not have to discover it unexpectedly during a referral visit—a frustration Dawn raises early in the episode.

Detailed Care Plans Help Caregivers Succeed

The conversation repeatedly returns to care plans and intake notes.

Both hosts describe being told their documentation contained too much information. Their response is that useful detail helps the caregiver, the client, and the agency.

Some of that detail is practical. Which entrance should the caregiver use? How can they find the correct home in a confusing community? What information would have helped the person completing the intake get there more easily?

Dawn and Lisa emphasize capturing those details and making sure scheduling passes them along.

Other details help the caregiver connect with the person receiving care.

Was the client a teacher? A nurse? A veteran? What might give them something comfortable to talk about when they first meet?

Without that context, a caregiver may arrive with a task list but little help starting a relationship. The hosts argue that a care plan should help the caregiver understand the person—not simply complete the assignment.

Good preparation gives the caregiver more than instructions. It gives them a better starting point.

Yes, Tell the Caregiver About the Seven Cats

One of the episode’s most memorable exchanges starts with a question:

Do you tell a caregiver about the client’s seven cats ahead of time, or let them discover the cats when they arrive?

Dawn and Lisa agree: tell them.

Their point is about being honest about the assignment. A caregiver needs to understand the environment they are entering, including something that could affect whether the assignment is a fit.

But they also encourage agencies to describe the whole person. The client is not simply “the person with seven cats.” They may have wonderful stories, an interesting background, and a personality that a particular caregiver would genuinely enjoy.

Being positive about an assignment does not mean hiding its challenges. It means presenting the challenges honestly while also helping the caregiver see the person behind them.

Dawn illustrates that idea with a story about a 95-year-old retired model whose life, preferences, and personality made her someone Dawn was excited to meet. The conversation brings the focus back to discovering what is interesting and meaningful about each client.

Supporting Caregivers Is Part of Delivering the Promise

Dawn and Lisa also discuss the relationship between schedulers and caregivers.

Their message is not simply to keep asking people to take more shifts. It is to build a genuine connection and provide support when caregivers need help.

That might mean helping someone find the right entrance, explaining the assignment clearly, or making sure the intake information reaches them before they arrive.

The hosts describe that support as a difference caregivers can feel between agencies. Their view is that people are more willing to accept assignments from a team that helps them succeed than one that leaves them to figure everything out alone.

This connects directly to the episode’s opening problem. Protecting a referral relationship is not only about what the marketer says after something goes wrong. It also involves what the agency does to prepare and support the caregiver before the next shift.

Move Forward—Without Pretending Nothing Happened

After addressing the problem, Dawn and Lisa caution against staying stuck in repeated apologies or becoming afraid to continue the relationship. Their advice is to make things right and keep moving, while recognizing that some situations cause more lasting damage than others.

Moving forward is not the same as forgetting.

It means taking what the situation exposed—a gap in communication, unclear expectations, missing details, or a staffing concern—and treating it as something the team needs to address.

The central lesson of this episode is that home care marketing does not end when a referral arrives. The experience that follows becomes part of what the referral source believes about your agency.

Own the problem. Take action to make it right. Support your team. Then move forward through what you do—not just what you say.

Listen to “When Care Goes Wrong: Own It, Fix It, Move Forward” on Home Care Marketing Unfiltered for the full conversation with Dawn and Lisa.