From Overwhelmed to Organized: SOPs & Staffing Secrets for Home Care Owners – Regina Asuncion

Introduction: Why SOPs and the Right Team Are Game-Changers for Home Care

If you’re running a home care agency, you know the feeling—your to-do list is endless, your phone never stops ringing, and you’re constantly wondering: “Why am I still the one solving every problem?”

This episode of the Grow Senior Care Marketing podcast hit close to home. I sat down with Regina Asuncion, founder of Ascension Business Solutions, to talk about something we both know far too well: the high cost of being stuck in your business instead of working on it.

Whether it’s SOPs, staffing, or letting go of control, Regina has helped countless home care agencies transform operational chaos into clarity. Her insights are rooted in 17 years of healthcare leadership, entrepreneurship, and training virtual assistants specifically for home care agencies.

Let’s dive into how you can stop reinventing the wheel—and start scaling smarter.

Watch how we grew an agency’s care hours by 400% (and how you can too)!

The Problem: Stuck in the Weeds, Burnt Out, and Understaffed

So many agency owners feel like they can’t step away from the day-to-day. Why?

• No SOPs to guide the team

• Wrong people in critical roles

• Burnout from doing everything alone

• Inconsistent training that leads to costly mistakes

Regina shared that many owners promote great caregivers into office roles, assuming their compassion will translate into admin skills. Unfortunately, it often backfires—causing owners to lose a great caregiver and gain a struggling team member.

“They weren’t trained. There aren’t SOPs. And no one wants to keep failing,” Regina explained.

The Solution: Finding the Right People for the Right Seat

At Ascension Business Solutions, Regina’s screening process includes more than just a résumé.

They look for:

• A Bachelor’s degree (as a base qualification)

• A problem-solving mindset

• Curiosity and a hunger to learn

• An attitude that everything is figureoutable

Regina’s own experience as a serial entrepreneur plays into her process. She trains her virtual assistants with that same mindset—people who figure it out, just like she and I did early in our careers.

“If you have team members who aren’t solving problems, then yes—you as the owner have to solve them. That’s not scalable.”

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Training That Builds Independence, Not Dependence

One of the biggest gaps in home care operations? Lack of meaningful training.

At ABS, every VA goes through an 80-hour training program per role. This includes:

• In-depth understanding of home care vs home health vs hospice

• Role-specific training (recruiting, scheduling, on-call)

• Disease education like Alzheimer’s and dementia

• A method Regina calls “1-3-1”: identify 1 problem, suggest 3 solutions, and recommend 1

This kind of training is not common in most agencies, where internal staff might only learn software and hope for the best.

SOPs: Your Insurance Policy Against Burnout and Chaos

No SOP = No real training = No measurable expectations.

Regina emphasized this chain reaction repeatedly. At ABS, they build SOPs directly from screen recordings and workflows. The result?

• Archived, searchable company manuals

• Embedded video links in SOPs for training continuity

• Immediate onboarding readiness for new hires

  
  “Simplicity scales. Complexity fails.” — That’s their guiding principle.

And when a key player leaves? You won’t be left scrambling. Your processes, training, and standards remain intact.

Delegation: The Leadership Skill No One Talks About Enough

We touched on something that really resonated: letting go.

Too many agency owners are hesitant to delegate because they fear the unknown or think only they can do it right.

Regina’s team teaches:

• How to identify what to delegate

• How to give clear, objective feedback

• How to build a tight feedback loop between VA and client

• How to emotionally detach from tasks and embrace leadership

  
  “If you’re holding on to recruiting, scheduling, or on-call—you’re holding your agency back.”

Real Talk: Why You’re Struggling With Recruiting

Regina revealed a stat that shocked me—77% of caregivers will leave within 6 months.

So if you don’t have a pipeline in place to refill that roster, you’re in constant survival mode.

Her team solves this by assigning VAs to:

• Source and vet candidates continuously

• Keep overhead low while ensuring hiring never stops

• Avoid confusion from “everyone pitching in” by creating ownership and accountability

A Better Way to Start: Focus on What You Hate

For home care owners overwhelmed by delegation, Regina offers this simple first step:

“Start with what you hate doing. What’s the most important thing not getting done?”

From there, her onboarding team helps prioritize, assign, and document. A success manager ensures both the VA and the client are accountable—bridging the gap between vision and execution.

How to Connect With Regina

Ready to hand off your recruiting, scheduling, or SOP development?

Visit: www.ab-solutions.org
Call: 720-651-0841
Email: admin@abs-co.org

You can usually be matched with a Rockstar virtual assistant within 1–2 weeks.

Final Perspective

If you’re still manually running your recruiting, scheduling, or handling every on-call emergency yourself—stop.

There’s a better way. Regina and her team at ABS don’t just place a VA and walk away. They bring expertise, structure, and repeatable systems that your agency can grow on.

And if you need help on the marketing side—driving client leads, getting more caregiver applicants through SEO, or just having a professional digital presence—that’s what we do every day at Grow Senior Care Marketing.

Check out the full podcast episode with Regina Asuncion on the Grow Senior Care Marketing podcast, and let’s keep building businesses that serve both our teams and our communities better.

Frequently Asked Questions About Scaling Your Home Care Agency with SOPs & Virtual Support

1. What does SOP stand for, and why does it matter for home care agencies?
SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure. It’s a documented process that outlines exactly how to complete recurring tasks—crucial for training, scaling, and reducing errors in your agency.

2. What’s the 1-3-1 method Regina mentioned?
It’s a structured approach to problem-solving: identify 1 real problem, come up with 3 possible solutions, and provide 1 recommended action. It encourages ownership and strategic thinking from your team.

3. How fast can I get help from ABS?
Regina’s team can usually place a qualified, trained virtual assistant in your agency within 1 to 2 weeks. They come fully trained and ready to support roles like recruiting, scheduling, and on-call.

Hope you found this to be helpful, if you’re ready to take your agency to the next level schedule your free home care marketing session with us now:

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