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, and the one job none of them do: answering your caregivers’ calls.
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.
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, verifies the shift, offers coverage to eligible caregivers by SMS, and updates the schedule. See call-out management.
Open shifts offered to the right caregivers and locked to the first yes — before the office opens. See last-minute shift fill.
Address, time, and “what’s my week” questions answered from live platform data, in English or Spanish, without a coordinator.
The whole workload, covered overnight and on weekends — the answering service that resolves instead of taking messages.
Each workflow is a solution page: call-out management, last-minute shift fill, and the 24/7 home care answering service.
HeyHomeCare answers your caregivers’ calls and texts 24/7 — call-outs covered, shifts filled, clock-ins chased — and writes it all back into your private duty platform. Live in about two business days.