EP. 01 - Building Bridges in Senior Care: A Conversation with Chris Cascio from Arosa Care

In this episode of Heart2Heart Senior Radio, we sit down with Chris Cascio, Regional Director from Arosa Care, to explore how they are revolutionizing senior care with their person-centered approach. As the 2025 underwriter for our podcast, Arosa Care goes beyond traditional home care by integrating holistic care management and nursing-first services, offering tailored solutions for seniors and their families.

Chris shares insights on bridging the gaps in senior care, from addressing the emotional and logistical challenges families face to providing consistent, compassionate support with no service minimums. Discover how their unique model empowers families to navigate the complexities of aging while maintaining dignity and care.

We also learn about Chris’s inspiring journey from EMT to Regional Director and how a personal experience with a neighbor's end-of-life care shaped his passion for improving senior services. Whether you're a caregiver, family member, or senior, this episode is packed with valuable information about Arosa’s comprehensive care solutions and their dedication to making a meaningful impact.

Tune in to learn why Chris believes every senior deserves to be heard and supported. Contact Arosa Care at (754) 300-1147 or visit their website at arosacare.com for more information.

Transcript

00;00;02;06 - 00;00;19;21
Juan Gallo
Welcome to Heart2Heart Senior Radio, where every voice matters and every connection counts. I'm your host, Juan Gallo, and I'm excited to bring you a sneak peek into what's coming our way. Each week we're bringing you real conversations with the most important people in our community, our seniors. They'll share their stories or wisdom and their unique perspectives on life.

00;00;19;21 - 00;00;46;18
Juan Gallo
But that's not all. Heart2Heart Senior Radio's also your trusted guide to the senior space. We'll be shining a light on exceptional vendors and services dedicated to making a difference in the lives of seniors. This isn't just a podcast, it's part of our outreach, our bigger mission to connect, advocate, respond, and engage. So tune in. Join the conversation and help us build a stronger, more connected senior community.

00;00;46;20 - 00;01;10;14
Juan Gallo
Hello everyone, and welcome back for another episode of Heart2Heart Senior Radio. I am here with someone very special today. Chris Castillo. He's the regional director for Rosa. Rosa cares. And what's interesting about this, Chris, and I'll let you kind of speak into this a little bit is, they are the underwriters for the whole for our podcast, for the whole year, for all of 2025.

00;01;10;14 - 00;01;26;27
Juan Gallo
Now, obviously, we have other segmented sponsors, right. But you guys have underwritten. So introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about it, Rosa. And then more importantly, why on earth we would you underwrite a pilot? Yeah. I'm so grateful. But yeah tell me more about that.

00;01;27;00 - 00;01;51;08
Chris Cascio
So we are a Rosa Care. We provide, home care solutions for seniors in the tri county area. So that means we do integrated care management. We do nursing. We do, home care. So we can do it all for the senior community. And we love what heart to heart does for that community. You provide solutions that otherwise wouldn't be there.

00;01;51;14 - 00;02;06;04
Chris Cascio
So why wouldn't we want to be involved and support an organization like that? So, Janelle, my colleague who is the area manager for Miami and South Broward office, you know, really encourage this as well. So we're more than honored to be involved with this.

00;02;06;07 - 00;02;27;12
Juan Gallo
That's awesome. I yeah, I would I will echo that, Janelle doesn't care encourage people to get involved with us. And we love that type of partnership. So I just want to say I'm grateful, so much for for you guys kind of come alongside locking elbows when I think of when I think of relationships between the for profit and nonprofit, I think of you guys.

00;02;27;14 - 00;02;43;13
Juan Gallo
And so it's a it's a big deal for us. So again, thank you for being here. You're actually our first vendor. And it makes sense, right. You know, you're our first vendor to be on the on the show. So so, Leah, let's just have a conversation about, you know, I know when I met Rosa, I'm like, okay, that's cool.

00;02;43;13 - 00;02;56;16
Juan Gallo
Home care. You hear that a lot. It's a saturated market when it comes to home care. You mentioned a couple of things that I think make you guys unique. For example, integrated care. Right. Tell us a little bit about that.

00;02;56;16 - 00;03;17;16
Chris Cascio
So we are care management for first. And so what that means is that when a family you know, when you're navigating this senior journey, right. When you get to that point, there's a lot of things you have to figure out. It's not just about home care. It's not just about, you know, what you're going to do. You know, when you get to that point of, you know, near the end, right?

00;03;17;23 - 00;03;38;26
Chris Cascio
You have to be prepared. There's financial implications. There's, you know, housing implications. There's a lot that goes into it. So people hire us to provide that guidance and give that holistic approach and to kind of be the stress ball for their families as they're navigating this really challenging time. So that's where we step in and we provide that care management support.

00;03;39;10 - 00;04;01;10
Chris Cascio
What makes us really unique is that it's nursing forward first. And so what I mean by that is every one of our clients, whether it's care management, home care, they all have a nurse that's attached to the case in many ways. So that just gives us an extra additional, support system for our clients. And there's no one else in the market who's offering that type of service.

00;04;01;10 - 00;04;17;02
Juan Gallo
That's amazing. Yeah. And I and I can attest to that just because, you know, we work with so many different vendors and we know that, you know, it always it's almost kind of like a la carte where, you know, one vendor does one thing. We got to go to another vendor for something else. But you guys are kind of keeping it all together, which is amazing.

00;04;17;23 - 00;04;34;22
Juan Gallo
So, talk to us. So we, we, we have seniors with all different types of insurances. Right. You mentioned the word people will hire us. Tell us a little bit more about that. Is this a private pay type situation? Is this Medicare? Is this long term care right. Talk to us about that.

00;04;34;22 - 00;04;54;23
Chris Cascio
So all of our services the concierge, nursing, the care manager and the home care piece is all private pay. That said, we do accept long term care insurance policies and we are a network with the veterans. So we accept a lot of veteran policies as well. So that really helps. People I know with, heart to heart, you have a lot of veterans who are involved.

00;04;54;23 - 00;05;15;29
Chris Cascio
So, we can support that community in that way. And what's interesting, even though we don't necessarily take Medicare or take private insurance, is we can help our clients navigate that journey. We have clients who will call us and say we need to apply for Medicaid, but we don't know what to do. So one of our care managers can help them navigate that.

00;05;15;29 - 00;05;34;27
Chris Cascio
It doesn't necessarily mean that we accept Medicaid payment, but we still help them through that journey. So we're able to, you know, even just be there. That's the other thing that's really neat about us is no minimums, right? If you call us and you say, hey, I just need somebody to, help me apply for a new private insurance plan.

00;05;34;27 - 00;05;40;12
Chris Cascio
I have no idea what I'm doing. We'll give you an hour or so of our time, and that could be the end of it, if that's what you need it.

00;05;40;17 - 00;05;58;08
Juan Gallo
And that's a big deal, because I think when we talk about a saturated home health care market, there are a lot of minimums. And the reason for that is because it's not it's not profitable, right, to drive all the way to somebody's house for an hour or two. And so a lot of home health care companies will have like these kind of four hour minimum three hour minimums.

00;05;58;16 - 00;06;01;21
Juan Gallo
So that is a big deal, that you don't have any minimums because you're willing to go.

00;06;01;23 - 00;06;22;06
Chris Cascio
And I understand why they have those minimums. You know, these caregivers are looking for consistent work for us because we have that care management piece. In that nursing piece, we can just step in and do those short shifts or navigate that, you know, couple challenges they may have. So yeah, we really make that convenient for the client.

00;06;22;06 - 00;06;41;18
Juan Gallo
That's such a good point, because when I think of minimums or not myself, but what I've heard other people say is, oh, they're just being cheap, right? But it's not necessarily just that. I mean, it's like you said, the caregiver wants consistent work. And if they're just going to drive somewhere for an hour, that's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be a good situation for them.

00;06;41;18 - 00;07;05;24
Chris Cascio
You know, it's funny, what happens a lot is, you know, if somebody wants an hour or so of care and we're just talking about the home care piece with the caregiver services, you know that's a higher rate. So a lot of times the families will realize, wait a minute. It makes so much more sense for us to have, you know, a little, you know, maybe make it a 4 hour or 6 hour a day and they end up saving money in a weird way just to have somebody there longer.

00;07;06;00 - 00;07;20;02
Chris Cascio
They're figuring it out. So we like to figure it out with them because it's new to them. And if they think that four hours is too much right off the bat, then we're going to support that and we'll go through it and show them that, look how much we just got done for you for two hours or an hour.

00;07;20;02 - 00;07;25;29
Chris Cascio
And then they realized, wait a minute, we could have used you a lot longer. So why say no just because of some kind of silly minimum, right.

00;07;25;29 - 00;07;32;26
Juan Gallo
So it sounds to me like you come alongside the family and, you're you're kind of going off of what they say.

00;07;33;03 - 00;07;33;12
Chris Cascio
100.

00;07;33;12 - 00;07;37;02
Juan Gallo
Percent. Okay. So, so it's almost like person centered.

00;07;37;04 - 00;07;49;01
Chris Cascio
Right? Exactly, exactly. And to take that even a step further, say, I want to meet with you. And I get a sense that you're the type of guy who wants someone that's going to interact with them and communicate and go shopping with that.

00;07;49;01 - 00;07;49;17
Juan Gallo
Big time.

00;07;49;17 - 00;08;05;06
Chris Cascio
And not, yeah, and not be someone who's just kind of going to provide care. You need them when you need them, and that's great. And there's some caregivers like that. What we do is we have caregiver profiles on every single one of our caregivers. So we're really able to do matching a grant. And we don't always hit a home run.

00;08;05;06 - 00;08;13;02
Chris Cascio
But if we don't, we've got a bullpen of excellent caregivers. We'll try the next time. But we really could get a step ahead of that because we try for the caregiver matching.

00;08;13;04 - 00;08;31;02
Juan Gallo
That's amazing. And that's one of the reasons why I think our partnership works so well. We don't just partner with anyone. We vet vendors like yourselves. In other words, we want the seniors that we serve to have access to person centered type of, vendors, because that's one of our big pillars, right? We want to be person centered.

00;08;31;08 - 00;08;44;25
Juan Gallo
We don't just want to come in to somebody's house and, and pretend to know or even assume to know that what they really need is there. So what they really need is that. So we just always ask, right. Exactly. Hey, how can we help? What's the best thing for you?

00;08;44;25 - 00;09;02;08
Chris Cascio
And we do the same. So even if someone calls us and it's pretty clear that they can't utilize our services, it's just not within any of their limits. We never say, okay, goodbye. We always guide them. We always help them in the next steps, you know? So if it's, hey, you know, who used to talk to go to go to heart to heart.

00;09;02;13 - 00;09;09;00
Chris Cascio
They could really guide you and help find solutions, whatever it may be. We're able to do that because we never just say flatly no to somebody.

00;09;09;07 - 00;09;29;10
Juan Gallo
That's awesome. So we have, kind of an internal motto and it's no senior turned away. So we really only have 4 or 5 pillar programs, but we get calls for all kinds of stuff, right? And we just don't say, wow, we don't do that by. We say, no, hey, that's not what we do, but we know someone who does, or hey, here's a roses number and vice versa.

00;09;29;10 - 00;09;49;13
Juan Gallo
You guys refer us. And again, I think that's just a testament to you guys and to the relationship that we have talked to me a little bit about service area. So a Rosa is not just in South Florida. You guys are part of a bigger as your job title with a regional director. So talk to me about, Big Rosa as far as corporately and then just, your service area.

00;09;49;13 - 00;10;17;09
Chris Cascio
So on a national level, we are in 12 states. Okay. We have over 35, offices, so 35 cities that we provide care in Florida. We currently could provide care from Key West to Orlando. So it's a pretty, you know, pretty big area. The cool thing is with care management services, if we had somebody even in outside of that coverage area, we can, you know, spread ourselves and help them even remotely.

00;10;17;09 - 00;10;40;03
Chris Cascio
We had a client that lived in Tallahassee who we provided remote, care management for, because sometimes you can navigate things, you know, without going in person. But on a local level, you know, we really have gotten ourselves established in Broward. With I mentioned earlier, Janelle Jackson, her she's really helped us in the Miami Dade Market and Palm Beach.

00;10;40;03 - 00;10;42;15
Chris Cascio
Now to Orlando is really starting to increase.

00;10;42;15 - 00;10;43;13
Juan Gallo
So that's always.

00;10;43;15 - 00;10;44;18
Chris Cascio
Fun time for me. That's really.

00;10;44;18 - 00;11;02;25
Juan Gallo
Good. Yeah. Yeah I think you guys have definitely made a footprint here in Broward and South Florida and definitely Janelle, which we'll hear from sometime later. So all right. That's that's all good. Let's get a little personal. Okay. All right. First of all, I know you had a baby. Congratulations.

00;11;02;25 - 00;11;03;12
Chris Cascio
Thank you. Rose.

00;11;03;13 - 00;11;23;23
Juan Gallo
And he's he's how many days old? 11 days. Oh, my gosh, I can't I remember, I remember so my daughter turned 18 this year and I she was born with blue eyes. Right. And apparently that's a phenomenon with kids. And I cited the data as a doctor. Whose kid is that? That, I don't have blue eyes. What's going on?

00;11;23;25 - 00;11;37;00
Juan Gallo
He goes, calm down, calm down. And so I told my daughter, I said, I remember when you were a baby. I said, you were born blue. And she goes, oh, I wish you would have taken pictures. I'm like, are you kidding me? Pictures? I'm like, I got a million pictures here. So I bet you're taking a lot of pictures.

00;11;37;02 - 00;11;38;16
Juan Gallo
Baby time, baby daddy time.

00;11;38;16 - 00;11;41;19
Chris Cascio
Yeah, I'm going to have to buy more storage on my phone, so that's awesome.

00;11;41;26 - 00;11;42;04
Juan Gallo
This is your.

00;11;42;04 - 00;11;43;13
Chris Cascio
First. That's my first. Yeah.

00;11;43;13 - 00;11;58;03
Juan Gallo
Oh, wow. Wow. That's a well, congratulations on behalf of, you know, heart to heart. That's a beautiful thing. Thank you. And, we hope the best for him. Tell us, a little bit about how you got into into this field. Yeah. You were you in it before?

00;11;58;03 - 00;12;20;27
Chris Cascio
Or so? I started my career in health care as an EMT. Oh. I knew I wanted to be in this industry. It's just at that time, I didn't know how to get into it. Right, I didn't know, so someone gave me a good tip and said, you know, get into from a clinical side. So I got in as an EMT and through there just having jobs in hospitals and urgent care as I was able to navigate and meet you know, the right kind of people.

00;12;20;27 - 00;12;45;25
Chris Cascio
And, ended up getting in the business development and sales space. And from there, that got me into operations, which is my true love. And the senior care part of that has been almost a decade now where I've been working with seniors, not only in the home care space. It was, primary care facilities at one point, and some urgent care centers.

00;12;45;25 - 00;13;02;22
Chris Cascio
And then my next job where I actually met Janelle, who again, to mention Janelle, was at an organization called Home Care Citizens who became the key. And then I got this wonderful opportunity for A-Rosa to build up our South Florida market. And it's been very exciting.

00;13;02;26 - 00;13;08;00
Juan Gallo
I don't think I knew the the EMT part. That's cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah. He was he here in South Florida.

00;13;08;00 - 00;13;08;12
Chris Cascio
Was.

00;13;08;12 - 00;13;15;11
Juan Gallo
It? Well okay. Yeah. So so without saying any names or hospital names or anything like that, what what what what was your experience like that was.

00;13;15;11 - 00;13;33;23
Chris Cascio
That was awesome. So I worked all the jobs I had because you could work as an EMT paramedic in the hospitals, what they call an E.R. tech. Right. So I was doing a lot of IVs and blood draws and, you know, minimal wound care at at, you know, urgent care centers in the hospital setting. And it was awesome.

00;13;33;23 - 00;13;46;26
Chris Cascio
Like, I love that. And, you know, every so often I, you know, wish I could go like, you know, do an IV on somebody or do something clinical. It was great. But my, my true passion is on that operations level for sure.

00;13;46;26 - 00;14;10;16
Juan Gallo
That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah, I would, I would say, you know, working in that field, you must have seen I mean, even now you see all kinds of stuff. Did you always, you know, thinking back, maybe your formative years, what I, I feel like people who have a passion and for people who are older had some type of formative experience that that, you know, allowed for that.

00;14;10;17 - 00;14;12;05
Juan Gallo
Yeah. What was that like for you?

00;14;12;05 - 00;14;34;20
Chris Cascio
Yeah, a couple things. So, you know, it's funny that you mentioned the EMT and seeing that, that definitely helps you grow a lot of empathy. So you know when patients. So I really feel that that's been super valuable for me as I've, you know, moved on. But I had a neighbor who became like family to ours and, and her kind of end of life, her journey was not great.

00;14;35;03 - 00;15;03;26
Chris Cascio
It she was not put in the right type of setting, and I that always stuck in me. I didn't want to see that happen to anybody again. Right. So that when it came to an opportunity to work with, two gentlemen named Manpreet and James at home care assistants, I, I remember just thinking about Leigh and thinking about what she went through and saying, wait, I have a chance to make a difference and be a part of an organization that could really navigate the senior journey the right way.

00;15;04;06 - 00;15;07;18
Chris Cascio
So definitely, her experience had a lot of impact on me. Wow.

00;15;07;21 - 00;15;09;22
Juan Gallo
Wow. And how do you do you remember.

00;15;09;25 - 00;15;17;06
Chris Cascio
When when it got to that point for end of life? Kind of for her? Yeah, I was in my, early 20s at that time.

00;15;17;06 - 00;15;19;16
Juan Gallo
Oh, okay. Yeah, definitely formative years. Right?

00;15;19;16 - 00;15;19;22
Chris Cascio
Yeah.

00;15;19;22 - 00;15;48;24
Juan Gallo
For sure. Yeah. Wow. Okay. What do you think is kind of, the missing element and what you see as typical everyday care services for seniors. I mean, so we live in South Florida, right? I mean, we have seniors literally everywhere and seniors, again, over the age of 55 is what people would consider. I think we'd consider it more over 65, I mean, and then even above that, but what do you think is the gap?

00;15;48;26 - 00;15;49;24
Juan Gallo
What do you see?

00;15;49;27 - 00;16;05;25
Chris Cascio
I think I think one, a lot of people are kind of nervous to navigate that journey. It's not something they're comfortable with. They get, you know, these are people going through, at the time, maybe the worst moments of their lives and not even the clients themselves. We're talking about the family of.

00;16;05;25 - 00;16;06;14
Juan Gallo
Children.

00;16;06;14 - 00;16;30;08
Chris Cascio
Going through that journey with them. And I think there's an apprehensive sometimes. Right, where the biggest gap, though, is that lack of consistency, that main point of contact. So what happens and you talked about this earlier is they hire somebody. Right. And then they have to talk to point B, point C, d e to to get through any little thing.

00;16;30;08 - 00;16;49;15
Chris Cascio
There's not just that one person who could kind of take control where we really focus on that. So if if we had a case that required, you know, a nurse to do social work type skills, we're going to put a sign that person and they're going to be the one point of contact for that family from the beginning to the end.

00;16;49;19 - 00;17;10;13
Chris Cascio
Yeah, they're not going to have to navigate going through 100 different people. So I think that we've really nailed that communication piece. And I think that's what, you know, unfortunately has been a bigger problem for a lot of senior organizations is they just don't have that ability or take enough pride in communication tactics, for sure.

00;17;10;17 - 00;17;28;09
Juan Gallo
I think you're so right. I think, you know, I think one of it is, you know, someone get in order to get a diagnosis. Now they have to admit their diagnosis, and maybe they finally get to the point where they tell their children. Now their children are like, okay, now we got to deal with this. And then you and I are probably in the same age group.

00;17;28;09 - 00;17;45;12
Juan Gallo
Right? So we're the sandwich generation. We got we got young kids and we got older parents and we're like, oh, what do we do? I know for me, you know what? My dad, I like what you were saying is having one point of contact. My dad, you know, he's he's alone now, but he calls me for everything, right?

00;17;45;14 - 00;17;59;07
Juan Gallo
And then there's times that I'm like, you know, if he didn't have me, what would he do? And there's so many people that just don't have that one point of contact, and then they're kind of bouncing around calling this place, calling that place, and that could be frustrating, you know?

00;17;59;07 - 00;18;23;06
Chris Cascio
And another thing to I think a lot of places when they hire people to, to provide the senior care, they don't focus enough on that emotional intelligence piece. And that's so important where everybody I could tell you on I'm on my team and across as a whole are have a high emotional intelligence, you know, IQ like they are really listening to what these families have to say.

00;18;23;06 - 00;18;39;07
Chris Cascio
They are empathizing for what they're going through. And I don't think people take that time to really appreciate it. Like this is a challenge. Like, don't dismiss it if they're having a bad day and they take it out on you, that's not because they don't like, you know what I mean? Or they think you're a bad person. They're figuring this out.

00;18;39;10 - 00;18;44;08
Chris Cascio
So if you have respect for that and do that the right way, that's super important.

00;18;44;10 - 00;19;06;27
Juan Gallo
That is so important because we are dealing with, you know, 3 or 4 different generations of older people. Right? We got 10,000 people turning 65 each and every day in America. And and you know, we have, you know, younger people in the services field who are picking up the phones and talking to some of these people so that I think that that emotional intelligence piece is a big deal.

00;19;06;29 - 00;19;24;23
Juan Gallo
And I'm saying that because we get, we get high school interns. Yeah. You know, it's like, you know, when they first come in, there's like a bit of a onboarding like, hey, there's if you hear this, if you hear that it's not you. It's just, you know, it's, you know, systematic of of the situation, of the context that we work.

00;19;24;23 - 00;19;37;10
Juan Gallo
And so that's, that's good. That's super important. And it's good to know what is something that you would really want. You know, listeners or even seniors to know as they hear, you know, this, this show today.

00;19;37;13 - 00;20;00;22
Chris Cascio
Yeah. If you whatever you hear, whatever you think your concern is, whatever's bothering you, ask A-Rosa. It could be the most what you what? You know what someone else from the outside. My my deem as a very mundane. And why are you bothering somebody with that kind of request? Bother us with that request. Ask us any little thing, any challenge that you deem worthy.

00;20;00;28 - 00;20;18;06
Chris Cascio
Just reach out to us. We're going to help you. We're not going to dismiss you. We're going to find a solution for you. So call a Rosa. If you're you know, you know, Ghostbusters theme, but for senior care, right? If you've got, a senior concern, call Rosa right away and we'll take care of it for you.

00;20;18;07 - 00;20;35;05
Juan Gallo
That's awesome. That's awesome. And I think part of the reason why you're confident in saying that is because you're locking elbows with people like us. So if you can't figure it out, you'll send them to us, or they'll send them to some of the other partners. Okay. Can you give us some contact information? So that way, if someone wants to reach you, they know where to do that.

00;20;35;05 - 00;21;00;24
Chris Cascio
So I would say that you could always go on our website, you know, a Rosa Caricom, and you could search the Fort Lauderdale, Miami or Orlando wherever office you want. Very easy website to navigate for that. Calling directly at (754) 300-1147. If you want to email me personally, that's Chris, Chris Casio Casio at A-Rosa Caricom.

00;21;00;25 - 00;21;03;05
Juan Gallo
Awesome. And can you repeat that number one more time?

00;21;03;12 - 00;21;08;22
Chris Cascio
Yeah. (754) 300-1147 awesome.

00;21;08;29 - 00;21;19;18
Juan Gallo
And in case you can't get in touch with damn or you didn't hear the number or you lose it, you can always reach out to us, right? Heart to heart. Senior radio. Well, Chris, I just want to thank you. I want to thank you for being on the show.

00;21;19;19 - 00;21;19;29
Chris Cascio
Yeah. Thanks.

00;21;20;17 - 00;21;37;16
Juan Gallo
Yeah, I look forward to to many more of these, podcasts. I look forward to just now being on. And I think it's going to be an amazing year. And again, from the bottom of our hearts and on behalf of the board and the staff and the seniors, we want to thank you for being the underwriter of Heart to Heart Senior Radio for 2025.

00;21;37;16 - 00;21;39;01
Chris Cascio
And thanks for what you do for the community.

00;21;39;01 - 00;21;52;02
Juan Gallo
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, a pleasure. Thank you for being on. Thank you so much for tuning in again. This is your host, Juan Gallo at Heart2Heart Senior Radio. Because every Hart has a story and we're here to listen.