Private duty means private pay: families are the payer, so the software question is about scheduling flexibility, caregiver experience, and family billing — not Medicare claims or Medicaid EVV aggregators. That narrows the field fast. Here’s what to require, which platforms fit (including running your agency on HeyHomeCare), and the job the platforms leave to people: answering your caregivers’ calls after hours.
Because the family is the payer, private duty software lives or dies on four things: fast, flexible scheduling (private-pay visits change more often than authorized Medicaid hours); a caregiver app your workforce will actually use; clean family invoicing and payment collection; and care documentation that reassures the family without a clinical compliance stack you don’t bill against.
What you can skip: OASIS-E and PDGM workflows (Medicare clinical), state EVV aggregator plumbing (Medicaid — though optional EVV is worth turning on for accountability), and payer-claims modules. Paying for that scope as a private-pay agency is the most common budgeting mistake — see what agencies actually pay.
Purpose-built non-medical scheduling, per-active-caregiver pricing (~$300–600/mo at 50 caregivers), live in 2–6 weeks. The default pick for private-pay agencies of 10–250 caregivers.
The former ClearCare, under WellSky ownership — the established choice for larger private duty operations already in the WellSky ecosystem, at ~$500–1,500/mo.
Cloud-native platform that runs private duty alongside home health and community care — the fit when private-pay is one line of a bigger operation.
Or run your agency on HeyHomeCare: recurring schedules and a week, day and month board, EVV with GPS clock-in and a Needs review queue, the caregiver app in English and Spanish, invoices with split payers and long-term-care insurance, payroll export files and reports by office — with the after-hours line on top if you want it. Moving from AxisCare, the importer checks your data, runs both side by side and switches on the day you choose.
Full rankings with strengths and watch-outs live in the non-medical software guide; head-to-heads like AxisCare vs WellSky and AxisCare vs AlayaCare cover the close calls.
Private duty runs on a thin coordinator bench, and the platform only records what someone tells it. The 6 AM call-out, the “can someone cover tomorrow,” the missed clock-in on a 7 AM visit — those land on a human, or they land nowhere.
HeyHomeCare answers the call, finds the shift, asks your on-call manager first or texts eligible caregivers right away (your rule), and holds the first yes for approval. See call-out management.
Open shifts offered to the right caregivers by text, with the first yes held for your on-call manager to approve. See last-minute shift fill.
Address, time, and “what’s my week” questions answered from HeyHomeCare’s copy of the schedule — only the caregiver’s own visits — in English or Spanish.
Weeknights and weekends covered by an after-hours line that works your business rules instead of taking messages. Emergencies always go to a person.
Each workflow is a solution page: call-out management, last-minute shift fill, and the after-hours line that resolves calls.
HeyHomeCare answers your caregivers’ calls and texts after hours — call-outs worked, open shifts offered, clock-ins chased — beside AxisCare, or as your whole system when you run your agency on HeyHomeCare. Scheduling connections require sales setup, authorized vendor access and validation before calls are forwarded.