Getting paid to care for your family

An estimated 63m Americans are caregivers — to a spouse, child, aging parent, or other loved one — and most do the work for free.

Most also probably wouldn’t expect to be paid to look after their loved ones, but maybe they should be.

You could call it a labor of love, but time is money, and when you’re busy spending most of it looking after someone else, it can be hard to make ends meet. According to AARP:

• A quarter of caregivers take on debt due to caregiving.
• Half report negative financial impact due to caregiving.
• One in five can’t afford basic needs like food.

And as America ages, demand for caregiving is only growing. Entrepreneur Havi Nguyen thinks that family caregivers don’t just deserve to be compensated for their work, but that doing so could also provide a solution to the home-care market’s supply problem, per Forbes.

How?

The 26-year-old founded Abby Care, a 5-year-old startup that provides formal training to family members of patients who require long-term care (e.g., people with autism or the elderly) so that they can become state-certified professional caregivers and be paid for their services through Medicaid.

• After training — which might involve in-person lessons on techniques like CPR and the Heimlich maneuver, or online courses on food hygiene and first aid — caregivers work with Abby Care nurses to create personalized care plans.
• Using the company's app, they can manage medical documentation, track hours, and access AI-powered clinical support.
• Hourly wages ranging from $15 to $27, depending on the type of certification.

The company currently operates in just eight states, but the ultimate goal is to build out a home-care marketplace — or, essentially, Uber for caregiving.

The program has its challenges…

For one, its reliance on Medicaid makes it vulnerable to policy changes and budget cuts that could disrupt its business model.

Scammers have also exploited Medicaid-funded home care programs by inflating or fabricating hours of care that were never provided.

Even so, Abby Care has received $45m in backing from VC firms like Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures, thanks in part to its use of AI, which one investor says allows it to “operate at a new level.”

Forbes is even betting on the company, currently valued at ~$225m, to hit unicorn status.