Building Trust and Innovation: How Beau Sorensen Is Transforming Home Healthcare | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Beau Sorensen, Chief Operating Officer at First Choice Home Health and Hospice, founded in 1995 and based in Orem, Utah. First Choice provides award-winning home health and hospice care with a commitment to clinical excellence and outstanding service. Under Bo’s leadership, the company earned a prestigious CMS five-star rating, significantly improved clinical outcomes from the 33rd percentile to the 99th percentile, and implemented a fully electronic medical record system. Bo has over 25 years of experience in hospice and home care, previously serving as Director of Operations and CFO. He has helped drive innovative initiatives that increase operational efficiency and enhance patient care. He also held key leadership roles that shape the organization’s successful growth.

First Choice focuses on delivering compassionate care to the communities they serve, striving to support patients and families during challenging times. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBAC Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency.com. All right, back to our guest today, the Chief Operating Officer at First Choice Home Health and Hospice, Bo Sorensen. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Beau Sorensen: Thanks for having me, Anthony. It’s great to be here.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, so Bo, what first attracted you to the health care space?

Beau Sorensen: Well, I’ve always been interested in health care. I remember when I was a little kid, that was, you know, I said I wanted to be a doctor. And, you know, even though it’s kids you tend to weave in and out of different careers and job opportunities, I always came back around to medicine. And when I was in college, I actually got my first job in home health care. I thought, you know, this is a great job to pay for college to get me through what I was doing.

And then I loved it. And so I said, you know, rather than go to school for another 12 years to be a plastic surgeon, I’m going to actually go into home health and get into my career and get helping people right away.

Anthony Codispoti: And so you’ve been with this company for a long time, over 20 years. How did the opportunity specifically with First Choice come about?

Beau Sorensen: Well, it was actually, that was my college shop. And so that’s what happened is, it was the first company that I worked for when I was in college. And then I loved it so much that I said, I want this to be my career. And I just so happened to stick with First Choice the entire time and up through different levels of jobs and management and eventually ownership.

Anthony Codispoti: This isn’t a story that you hear very often anymore, right? Like, it’s more about like, you jump different jobs to sort of get your promotions and, you know, kind of work your way up the corporate ladder. And I’m going to take this with a grain of salt, what you just said, you’re like, it just so happened that I stayed with the same company. So clearly there’s more to the story than that. Like, there’s something about this organization specifically that kept you there. What is so special about First Choice?

Beau Sorensen: The thing that attracted me to First Choice and that I loved about First Choice is that even though it hasn’t always been easy or it hasn’t always worked out exactly how I expected, there’s a couple of guiding tenets that First Choice adheres to and that we’ve adhered to the entire 20 some odd years that I’ve been here. And one of those is putting the patient first.

It’s making sure that we give the patient everything that we can possibly give them. Now, could you always do more sure? Could you be out of business if you did that?

Yes, you could. So, you know, it’s making sure that we give the patient everything that we need and then making sure that we treat the employees fantastically. And there’s a lot of things that we try to do for employees. You know, in the past it was different benefit programs.

Now it’s bringing them together more often because this is a very fragmented field. You know, just like with UPS drivers and FedEx drivers, our people are out in the field the entire time that they’re working. And so we constantly try to bring them in so that we have a team feel and so that everybody knows each other and so that people feel supported because too often people in home health and hospice tend to feel like they are on an island because of the fact that they never see anybody at work and they don’t get that support. So, really focusing on the patients and focusing on the employees and then letting the finances and everything else work itself out is the thing that I really love about First Choice.

Anthony Codispoti: So, it’s like a people first mentality. You have, I’m going to call it two different clients. You’ve got, you know, your patients and then you’ve got your employees. And you’re right, like in the type of work environment that your folks are operating in, there’s no water cooler, right? There’s no like a conference room or, you know, like Taco Tuesday celebrations because, right, everybody is out working at, you know, the patient’s home. So what does that look like? Like what are some of those opportunities to actually bring people together in person?

Beau Sorensen: So some of those opportunities is once a month in each of our locations, we have a meal where we get together. And when I say a meal, it’s not just, hey, we’re going to bring in something from DoorDash or Pizza Hut or whatever. It’s legitimately, I make the meals. So I cook all of the food for 75 people every single month so that they feel like we are putting that kind of energy into them. And yes, it takes a lot of work for me and for my wife, but we want to do it because when we see people and how they care about that and how much they appreciate it, that they get a good home-cooked meal once a month from somebody who, you know, clearly is spending a lot of time doing that.

It really ties them into the organization. What was in the last lunch? What did you make? The last lunch that we made was, let’s see, we did turkey and mashed potatoes that were garlic mashed potatoes with cheese on top of them. And then we had salad and we had, it’s called Dixie salad, is the other salad that we had. It was kind of, it’s apples and cream and pomegranates and walnuts. And then, you know, and then just drinks and some desserts.

Anthony Codispoti: That sounds great, but that’s a nice special touch. I mean, that has to take you, for that number of people, has to take you hours and hours to prep that amount of food.

Beau Sorensen: It does take a decent amount of time. We have gotten pretty good at it. So sometimes we, you know, but even when we’re good at it, it’s still is, you know, it’s another full day worth of work on top of the typical work that we do.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay, that’s a full day of prep. Okay, so I love that example of how you guys prep the meal and bring everybody in together. Like specific stories like this are really fun to hear. Can you think of a specific story where the level of patient care, like you guys really went above and beyond? I think that would be nice for folks to hear too.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, yeah. So we have one patient who, he’s been with us for, man, I’m trying to think, he’s probably been with us for 15 years. And most of our patients come in and out, they, you know, they have a surgery, then they get, they get there out of the hospital, we take care of them for 30 to 60 days, and then they move on. But there’s some folks that don’t have that opportunity. And this particular person has been with us for 15 years, he’s a quadriplegic. And so we have had people going out and taking care of him, bathing him, giving him all of his personal care that he needs, getting a nurse out there regularly, and then also doing some therapy because, you know, just because he’s a quadriplegic, you want to try to exercise those muscles. And so we have done his care for over 15 years and given him everything that he needs on a daily basis. So we’ve got folks in there every single day to take care of him. And there’s been times when the insurance company hasn’t authorized that. And so that’s a physical challenge for us. But we have said, you know what, we’re going to continue to take care of him, even though the insurance company has said, we don’t think that he has this need anymore. And we’ll try to fight it and hopefully make up that money on the back end.

And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I think that at this point, we’ve got a pretty good understanding with him that he does need this care. So we are getting paid, but there’s been times when we’ve gone without to take care of him.

Anthony Codispoti: Do I want to go down this road? I mean, it seems pretty cruel that an insurance company would try to make the argument that a quadriplegic doesn’t need the care that you’re offering. Maybe we’ll just sort of leave that one there. But and focus more on the good, because the good part of this is that this is an example of like you guys really leading with the people first mentality, right? And it’s like, we know this person needs care. He’s a human being.

I’m a human being. Like, let’s get him the care that he needs. And we’ll worry about the money part on the back end. We’ll work to get our money. Maybe we’ll get it. Maybe we won’t. But this person can’t be without this level of care, right?

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, yep, exactly. And that’s the way we’ve always operated.

Anthony Codispoti: So before we get too much further along, because I’ve got a couple of different places I want to take this interview, maybe explain for us a little bit more detail the different services that you do offer.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that the the core offerings that we have are skilled nursing services. What that is is that’s that’s a nurse that’ll come in, they’ll do wound care. So take care of wounds. And that could be anything from something mild like a blister that popped that they can’t take care of all the way to a full tunneling wound that is is gaping and open to the bone.

So we can do wounds all along that spectrum. It’s doing IV therapy, making sure that they’re getting the medications that they need for sepsis or things like that. It’s taking care of lymphedema.

And so that’s, you know, if you have lymph drainage issues and you tend to swell up, it’s taking care of that and getting somebody back down to kind of what their their normal appearances and their normal body structure is. There’s physical therapy that we do, which is exercising limbs and really big muscle groups like arms, legs, things like that. Then there’s occupational therapy.

And that is fine motor movement and being able to manipulate different tools like forks and pens and pencils so that people can eat so they can function with with some of the small detail work that you do that you take for granted. We also give social work services. So helping people find different community opportunities that they that they can have because, you know, as much as we would want to take care of everything, unfortunately, we can’t just take care of everything.

And so and even when we’re gone, we want to make sure that people are taken care of after we are out of there. And so we’ll bring in social work to give them those community options so that they know where to go once we’re out of the out of the picture. And then there’s home health aid services. And that is taking care of all of the different needs that somebody has that aren’t medical. So that’s taking care of their bathing, getting them out of bed in the morning, helping them eat. It can even be walking them here and there, where in between those physical therapy appointments, so they have the strength to hopefully get off of our services.

There’s also speech therapy, where we help people be able to speak again or swallow, and so that they don’t choke and get them back to where they need to be from kind of a mouth and throat perspective.

Anthony Codispoti: So this is a combination of both skilled and unskilled services. Are the services always being provided in home? Or do you have relationships with, I don’t know, different hospitals or nursing homes where you go there as well?

Beau Sorensen: Typically it is in homes or in assisted living facilities. And so it is in an area where it’s not super, what, they don’t have that. Now on our hospice side, and because I haven’t even gone into that one yet, but on our hospice side, we do do services in hospitals and in skilled nursing facilities because those are able to be done concurrently. But home health has to be kind of a separate carve out from, that’s separate from those rehab facilities and things like that.

Anthony Codispoti: And what geographies do you operate in?

Beau Sorensen: We currently operate in Northern Utah. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti: Bo, explain for me what it means to be a CMS five-star agency.

Beau Sorensen: So that is, what a five-star agency is, is CMS has a pretty hefty amount of data that they collect. And so what they do is every single time that we go into a patient, our initial visit, we collect this data, and then every 60 days we collect the data again. Or when somebody discharges, we collect this data. And so as you, as we gather this information, we then transmit it to Medicare. And so what that is, is Medicare says, here’s all this information, and then they rate everybody against each other. And some of those measures or process measures, it’s like, did you check the patient’s pneumonia vaccine?

It’s, did you, are you in there within 24 hours? It’s things like that. Sometimes it is, it’s, it’s outcomes data. So did the patient get better at taking medications?

Or did the patient improve at going to the bathroom during your time there? And so they gather all those measures together, add hospitalizations on top of that, and then they come out with what they call a five-star system. And so you can be anywhere from one star to five stars on that rating scale. And, and, you know, if you’re a one star, if you’re a two star, that doesn’t mean that you’re bad.

What it means is it means that everybody else is progressing beyond you. A three is, is pretty much the average agency. And that’s where people want to be. But then when you get into four and five stars, obviously, your outcomes are better. And so what that means is that means that, that people are getting better, people are being healed, healed more.

Agencies are doing all the little things that need to be done in order to get that care where it needs to be. And so that’s kind of what that five star rating means.

Anthony Codispoti: And so is this sort of tied to the performance improvements that we mentioned in the intro, going from the 33rd percentile to the 99th?

Beau Sorensen: It is, yeah. And, and a lot of that, one of the things that we’ve found is that most of our clinicians were getting the outcomes that we wanted them to get. They were, the patients were improving, they were healing, but they weren’t documenting them well. And that’s, you know, one of the things that, that is great with clinicians is they care so much. And that’s where they focus all their energy. But on the flip side, because that’s where they put their care, that’s where they put their attention, they tend to leave that documentation piece and say, well, you know, I’ll get to that eventually. And when you get to that eventually, you don’t get the results that you need because you’re just not remembering the right things and you’re not focused on, everybody else, you know, you’re focused on a single stakeholder, which is your patient, you’re not focused on the other stakeholders, which is the people in the office and the people at the payers, because the payers are also, you know, you talked at the beginning about how we have multiple sets of clients, we have our patients and we have our staff. We also have the insurance companies that we look at as clients too. And even though it’s a little bit different relationship, we’re there to serve our, the insurance companies as much as we are to serve our patients and our staff.

Anthony Codispoti: So the biggest sort of lever that you pulled to affect that, that significant change was to improve the documentation.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, it was, it was to get them where they needed to be on the documentation side.

Anthony Codispoti: What else set the documentation aside? What was one other big lever that you pulled that helped to boost those numbers?

Beau Sorensen: One that we found was hospitalizations and that was, that was something that really was a significant challenge because we noticed that the people were going to the hospital too much. Yes, they were improving when they were improving, but they were going back to the hospital and, you know, as we talk about stakeholders, that’s one of those things where that costs an insurance company money.

And when that insurance company is Medicare, that means it costs the taxpayer money. So how can we get them out of a hospital? And so what we did is we did a hard target search of every single hospitalization. And we said, okay, not just why were there, or were they hospitalized, why were they hospitalized? And so we drilled into the data, looked at everything that we could, and found what the root causes for those hospitalizations were.

And then we took steps to mitigate those. And one of the most significant ones that we found was people who were getting sepsis from UTIs. And you wouldn’t think that urinary tract infection would be something to really be going to the hospital for, but for most of our patients, those can turn very quickly into some kind of sepsis. And then that leads to hospitalizations and other adverse outcomes. And so we put into play different tests and said, you guys, you are all empowered to, if you notice anything wrong, you can just go ahead and do a simple dip test.

It will tell you if you need to be more concerned or less concerned about this. So then we can get them the medications that they need right away. So then they don’t go to the hospital. And that was 25% of our hospitalizations was that one little thing. And we wiped that from 25% to zero. Oh my gosh.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. Just the big change was telling your staff, Hey, if you notice anything, if you’re at least a little bit suspicious, you said a dip test. So I don’t know, is there like a paper?

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, P in a cup. And then you just put a little dip stick in. And the stick will say, is there concern? Is there bacteria in the urine or is there not bacteria in the urine?

Anthony Codispoti: And this is a relatively inexpensive little dip stick that you can cost a buck and a half. And from that, you were able to take, you were able to take what was 25% of your hospitalizations down to now it’s 0%. Yeah. And how did you, you said you did some sort of a deep dive on the data, some sort of a targeted search, say more about that.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah. So what we did is we went into our EMR and I have an electronic medical record. Yeah. I say a lot of terms that I think everybody’s got to know this, but I realize I’m the one that knows this.

Anthony Codispoti: And everybody in your field, but for those listening who don’t, yep, go ahead.

Beau Sorensen: Exactly. Yeah. So we went into our medical record and what I did is I know Sequel, which is a programming language really, really well. And that was the format that our database was in. And so I said, I’m going to go across our entire business unit and run a report that grabs all of these different hospitalizations so we can identify the people instead of having individuals find a hunt and find each one because when you’re serving 1500 patients a year going through an entire chart is a lot of work. And so then we did that to identify the people. And then we did, we went into that further and did some more Sequel queries to determine what it was that was the hospitalizations through. A lot of it was just searches for text threads. And some of those, that got us most of the way there, but that didn’t get us all the way there. And so anybody that we found that we couldn’t just automatically pull that information for, we went in and had somebody review the chart. And so it was a combination of some programming as well as some legwork or I guess clicking work to get to the point that we found all of that.

Anthony Codispoti: Is this level of tech utilization unusual for a group your size?

Beau Sorensen: I would say that certainly at the time that we did it, it was definitely unusual. Agents, people are catching up in our industry, but I would still say that we are relative to others technologically advanced in our field.

Anthony Codispoti: Can you say more about that? What is it that you guys are doing that’s maybe a bit ahead of the curve?

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, one of the things that we’re really focused on right now is artificial intelligence and using AI in a lot of different aspects, not just for patient care, which is where kind of a lot of the energy is right now, but also in every other aspect of our business. So can we use AI in our marketing? Can we use it in our finance? Can we use it in our quality assurance and looking over our data? Where can we use AI to augment what we’re doing so that we can ultimately see more people with the same staff that we have to support our field staff?

Anthony Codispoti: I’d be interested to take a little bit of a deeper dive on this because recording this at the early February 2025, it’s the top of everybody’s mind and what are the sort of practical applications of this kind of tech? Maybe let’s talk first about patient care. What does that look like tied with AI?

Beau Sorensen: So right now the AI that we’re looking at on the patient care side is a couple of different things. One is what we’re calling a co-pilot and what that is is, as I was talking a little bit earlier about our clinicians feeling like they’re on an island or clinicians in our field feeling like they’re on an island and some of that is they don’t necessarily have somebody there to tell them, oh hey, have you looked at this?

Have you looked at that? Sure they could call into the office. They have a director of nursing that can give them that assistance but when you’re in a hospital or when you’re in a skilled nursing facility you have your colleagues around you to give you that help and you can bounce ideas off of them. The clinical co-pilot is an option that gives them somebody, somebody, an AI to bounce that off and so they’re able to say, hey I’ve got these symptoms, this is what’s going on with a patient, can you give me some ideas on what might be happening? And then the AI will spit out, here’s what I think are some suggestions, here’s some things that you can try so that then they feel like they have that extra knowledge base that they don’t have in their brain, augmenting what they’re doing.

Anthony Codispoti: What’s feeding that AI on the back end? Is it open AI? Is it some of your own data that you’ve collected over the years?

Beau Sorensen: So yeah we have a, so there’s one of the things that is a challenge with this is there’s a law called HIPAA which is Health Privacy basically and so it is a HIPAA compliant data set that I think that the vendor that we’re talking with they do use open AI as part of their back end but it’s augmented within clinical data that’s fed into it as well so it’s a combination of commercial data sets that are sandboxed in a HIPAA way and then augmented with clinical data that feeds it that allows it to continually get smarter.

Anthony Codispoti: How are you guys using it in finance?

Beau Sorensen: Right now the way that we’re using it in finance is to scan and put information in from accounts payable vendors and things like that without human intervention so it’s feeding out a lot of fields that used to have to be manually filled and so all of that is being done it’s just scanning the invoice and then putting it into the system.

Anthony Codispoti: Is there the potential, I don’t know how are your employees filling out the the care records or is it like a manual process and then that’s sort of scanned in and can that be used with AI or are they typing it already into a set form?

Beau Sorensen: So right now they’re typing it into a system we don’t have anybody who’s doing any paper records it’s all electronic now and so that is an area where we’re going to start using artificial intelligence we haven’t got there quite yet because we’re working with vendors to actually build this but get it so that then we can use AI to see what’s going on in those charts to identify issues and see what we need to do with patients more quickly where right now we’re primarily relying on individual reporting the artificial intelligence would then give us upfront information and start paying people to say hey you need to take a look at this hey this this patient may be more appropriate for a different care setting this patient you may need to do some more visits on or this patient may be ready for discharge and you haven’t noticed that yet so just kind of augmenting that clinical person who’s in there and giving us the ideas more quickly so that we can get that patient the care that they need or alternatively you know talking back about our insurance partners make sure that they aren’t paying for care that they don’t need to pay to pay for

Anthony Codispoti: this is fascinating and this is a system that you guys are building there’s nothing sort of off the shelf that does what you need

Beau Sorensen: there is nothing off the shelf right now and and so yeah that’s that’s why we’re doing it this way

Anthony Codispoti: that’s that’s amazing how far off do you think it is for being ready for prime time

Beau Sorensen: use we one piece of it I think is so what we’re doing is we’re trying to cobble together multiple vendors to do this one piece we’re supposed to get a demo here in about a month of the first piece of this and that’s that’s the one that sends them to different care settings the the next piece after that which is are you are you doing the appropriate level of care do you need to do more or less that’s probably another I I would hope less than six months out but it might be a little longer than that

Anthony Codispoti: oh but to have you back on after you guys have put it through its paces a bit see how it’s going so I think that that could be a game changer for a lot of folks yeah absolutely potentially a possibility for you guys to license that tech that you’ve built I’m sure that your your head’s already there as well yep so tell me how you guys are using it in marketing then is it just to kind of come up with different copy and add ideas

Beau Sorensen: the exactly yeah it’s the one of the things that we found is at least for our for our marketers and for the the people who do that that ideation process is one of the most challenging aspects of you know thinking of what it is that I want to to have be this ad campaign or what it is that I want to take out to to different partners this gives them a lot of ideas and starts that brainstorming process a lot quicker so as a result they they they are dramatically cutting down their time and they’re able to get out there and actually do the work as opposed to sit in the office and brainstorm for all of that time

Anthony Codispoti: instead what bow have you found is maybe the most successful growth strategy for you guys is it you know Facebook ads is it partnerships with different facilities something else

Beau Sorensen: I would say partnerships with with facilities and primarily with hospitals and with assisted living facilities one of the things that that we found in our industry is that you can put out a lot of ads you can you know you can put up billboards you can do it on Facebook or Google ads or whatever and in a lot of industries that works great but because of the way that we have to work because we have relationships with doctors the doctors have to always give a referral and and sign orders on on patients we can’t just go out and start seeing people as a result of that that one-on-one connection is is the real way that we have been able to drive growth is getting people in front of other people talking with them about our services and creating a relationship so that then they feel comfortable to refer back to us I wish that we could scale with ads and and in Facebook that would make life a lot easier but unfortunately it’s that one-to-one which which means that we don’t scale as quickly but it does mean that it’s it’s a sustainable growth

Anthony Codispoti: what does the future look like where are the growth opportunities for you guys is this larger geography is this expanded services is this just getting the word out with you know better within the geography that you’re already operating in

Beau Sorensen: it’s a combination of all three we are looking at new geographies both in state and out of state and then we’re also looking at new service lines and and getting into you know right now most of our care is is focused on I would say more geriatric patients no we do have folks who are my age and who are younger than my age who are on services but moving from that also into pediatric care and taking care of kids as well as adults

Anthony Codispoti: in home settings still yeah absolutely um what’s one book resource podcast course that has been helpful for you that you’d recommend to others

Beau Sorensen: that my favorite book on on making your company better in my opinion is speed of trust and I it’s by Stephen m r cubby and I love it because it talks about how trust is the foundation of everything that you do and we found that to really be true here that’s that’s one of the reasons why And we do so many things with our field staff and why I cook for people and why we do all the things that we do is because we’re trying to build that trust. Because that trust is a foundation that then we can build so many other things on. And if you don’t have trust, then what you have is you have processes that grinds to a halt.

You have people that are in fighting because they don’t trust each other and they think that somebody is trying to get them. But when you have that trust, all of that melts away and you’re able to move forward much quicker and move things at a rapid pace. And so you’re able to innovate. You’re able to bring new things into the company and people aren’t afraid that, well, you know, what does this mean for me? Are you trying to get me or are you trying to harm me? No, we’re trying to help you. And that trust underpins everything that we do at our company.

Anthony Codispoti: Can you give a specific example of how you fostered that trust? Yeah.

Beau Sorensen: I mean, one way that we’ve fostered that trust is by being really transparent with our staff. If there are, they know exactly where they stand with us at all times. And that can be a challenge sometimes because it’s hard to tell people, hey, here’s where you’re failing. Here’s where we need you to improve. But some of the ways that we’ve done that is by introducing scorecards and making sure that they can pull those and that they know the data behind it so that it’s not a surprise to them when they go to an annual review and find out, well, here’s what your raise is. And here’s why your raise is what it is.

You didn’t get a full raise. And the reason why is because if you look at your scorecard, then this is where you were. And that scorecard comes right back around to all of those star measures. So are they, are their patients improving in those different areas or are their patients actually not? Are they getting their documentation in on time? And all of that is information that they know and that they know directly how they can affect.

Anthony Codispoti: So for those folks that are listening that are trying to make their mark, what advice would you have for folks that want to advance their career in this field?

Beau Sorensen: I would say that advancing your career in this field, it’s certainly a challenging field. It’s not one that is for the faint of heart. It’s super rewarding, but it’s also one where you don’t have high margins.

So it’s not something where you can just go and say, I’m going to be able to make this product and sell it for twice the price and make a lot of money. You have to love what you do. And if you don’t love it, you’re not going to make a mark.

If you do love it, then get involved in the community. It’s not just going to be you and the company that you’re at. Get involved with other companies in the community and form partnerships. You don’t have to cross refer necessarily, but the more relationships that you have, the better you are. And that’s one of the things that I found in my career has been the most helpful is the relationships that I’ve built, not just in Utah, but around the country in home health and hospice. And through those relationships, I’ve been able to open up areas that I never thought possible, even though we are just a small agency in Utah. I have friends around the country through what I’ve been able to do that have helped the industry around the world, around the country.

Anthony Codispoti: What do you do to form those community relationships? Are you going to festivals and fairs? Are you setting up a tent? What does this look like for you?

Beau Sorensen: A lot of it is. So I go to, we have annual conferences, just like a lot of industries do. And so it started out with me going to those conferences, getting education, learning, and then from there starting to connect with people that I found interesting.

And then I thought, this is somebody who has great ideas. And then once I make that connection and form that tight knit, again, trust with that person, then they connect me with other people. And pretty soon, those connections turned into a lot of connections.

And then those connections led to me getting positions with our National Association on the advisory board and things like that, where I was able to then give back to the community. And that’s one of the key pieces is it’s not just getting from these folks and it’s giving to them and saying, okay, here’s how I can add value. And the way that I can add value is through ideas.

It’s through giving information out and being generous with what I’m doing so that it’s not just me hoarding information, but it’s me getting that out to everybody else so that they can also improve. Because ultimately, we are a public good. Our industry is something that really, really matters to the country.

It’s cost effective. It is something that is really, really needed for so many people out there. And so the way that I can help everybody is by getting ideas out there, helping people to get where they need to be. And when I get an email from somebody that is one of my connections and they say, hey, Bo, can you help me out with something? Then I always say yes. And having yes first as my mentality as opposed to no first has gone a long way.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s so fascinating that I asked the question about community and your head went to community of other service providers. And I think that’s so important and can be such a strong support network. Because here you are, now you’re an owner, you’re running the business there. Obviously, you’ve got other folks in your leadership team, but how great is it to be able to have the support and for you to be able to support other people who are trying to provide the same kinds of care and services that you are? I mean, nobody else knows the kinds of struggles and specific challenges that you deal with better than other folks who are in your same position. Absolutely.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah. It’s so true. And that support that we have with each other is something that really makes some of the challenging times feel a lot less challenging because you know you’ve got somebody that has your back.

Anthony Codispoti: Bo, what’s a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life? Maybe it’s something personal or professional, maybe a combination of the two. What was that like? How did you get through it? And what were some lessons that you learned?

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, one of the, I would say the biggest challenge that I have got through is a few years back we had, at the time there were three owners of our company. And there was me, there was one other that I worked really closely with and that we’ve been friends for 20-some odd years and we had an additional owner. And we got into a lawsuit and it was because the one owner wanted to go one direction.

We said, we’re okay with that but we want to go a different direction. And she actually tried to take the whole company from us. And so it was a big lawsuit. It took about three years to resolve, all said and done. But during that three years there were a lot of challenges, a lot of long nights as we talked with lawyers, as we worked to make sure that the company was still successful and that it was able to support the staff because you can’t just stop operations and say, okay, I’m going to focus on a lawsuit now. You have to make sure that you’re still seeing those patients and that you’re still taking care of the staff and that through all of that and all that chaos that that brings, that they feel like there is still a company here, there is still a support network that I have, and that that’s not going to go away. And so there was a lot of talking with staff and reassuring them and saying, we’re still here, we’re going to be here.

This is not going to be a problem for you so don’t worry about it. And we didn’t end up losing, we lost two staff members during that time frame. We were afraid that we were going to lose about 30% of them initially.

So losing only two felt really, really good. But the thing that I found from that is really when you get into a lawsuit, that’s not something where you typically like the person on the other end. That’s something where you tend to really, things like hate can come into it. And that was something that I worked very, very hard to say, I do not want this to be me because that hate and that anger that you have towards somebody can seep into all other areas of your life and it can transform you in very negative ways.

And so that was the thing that I said up front is I can’t be somebody that hates this business partner. She’s making bad decisions. I don’t agree with them.

They’re hurting the company, but I can’t hate. And I didn’t. And so things ended up working out. We bought her out. She got her money and went her way. We have the company.

We went our way. And I think that through having that mindset of what is the end that I want? And the end that I want is I want to be a good person still.

I don’t want to be somebody who other people would look at and say, oh, he’s just out for him or he’s a real negative person. I wanted to still be the person that I was before the lawsuit, after the lawsuit. And I feel like with that, I was able to move through that in a way when a lot of people aren’t able to.

Anthony Codispoti: I mean, it’s really admirable that a big part of your goal was not to be consumed by hate, because you’re right. In that kind of a situation, you and your other partner, you feel very passionately, very strongly about the direction that you want to take the business. And it’s okay to have disagreements, but to have a lawsuit filed against you. This is just a world of stress that comes down upon you. It’s one thing to say, hey, I’m going to choose not to hate. It’s another thing for that to actually be the felt sensation inside of your body. Like, what were you actually doing to help mitigate, reduce, ignore the hateful feelings that are very natural to have pop up? Yeah.

Beau Sorensen: Some of the things that I did, and I prayed for, and I said, I wanted her to have what was best for her as well. And there were opportunities to send her to jail, actually, because of contempt rulings. And the judge said, what do you want to do?

And I’ll do whatever you want. And we said, we could do this. We don’t want to do this, because that right there is malicious and it’s arbitrary and capricious.

And instead of that, we want our attorney’s fees paid because that costs us money to fight this this contempt hearing. And that’s all we want. Just give her that. And so it was always being generous with her and trying to make sure that she came out with a win in an area where it was very hard for both parties to win. And in the end, was it a win on both sides?

I think so. She got money. We got the company that we wanted, and we were able to go the direction we wanted. And so seeking a win-win for her, even though that was decidedly not her perspective, is I think another way that we did that as well.

Anthony Codispoti: Was there anybody who was coaching this mindset to mentality for you during this time period? Because what you’re describing, it’s how I hope I would react in a similar situation. But man, I like having one of my business partners file a lawsuit against me and then these contempt hearings and like, I could just see myself getting pretty worked up about this.

Beau Sorensen: You know, I certainly had had some help. I mean, my wife was very helpful. And so there was that. There was, again, I mean, through prayer, that really helped me to change my feelings. And talking it out with God got me to process the things that I needed to process. And then I knew that I had such a great support network through all the people that I talked with over the years. And I was able to, you know, certainly not share everything with them.

But, you know, there were people that I knew that were lawyers and there were people that I knew who who were in home health and hospice. And I was able to say, Hey, here’s this challenge. Can you help me work through this? And so knowing that I had all that support also helped to get me to say, you know, this is okay. And I can get through this. Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti: You know, Bo, my experience sometimes what we consider to be our biggest mistakes end up becoming our greatest teachers down the road as we kind of look at them in the rear view mirror. Can you think of an early career moment that seemed like a setback at the time, but actually propelled you forward?

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, I think that one of the big setbacks that I had, there was a time when I, this was probably back in 2007, 2008. And I thought I was doing great.

I thought everything was going smoothly. And then I had a series of conversations with people where they told me, you’re not nearly as good as you think you are. And so I said, well, that’s not what I want to be.

I want to be better than that. And so I had a coach who I worked with and he sent out a survey to everybody at the company said, let’s just see what everybody thinks of you. And in that survey, you know, it was your ranked one to five. And my overall score was was like a 2.8. So I looked at that and I said, that’s not good enough for me to ever move beyond just a worker. Nobody’s going to trust me.

People think that I’m cold or that they don’t want to work with me because they think I’m critical of them. And so through all of that, he and I worked together on a plan to improve. And so, you know, he worked on my strengths and he said, okay, here’s where people say that you’re strong. This, this, this and this, here’s where people say you’re weak.

This, this, this and this. And we’re going to focus on your strengths because by putting up your strengths, it’s like the the poles on a tent. And you can increase the room in your tent by increasing your strengths, just like if you do increasing your weaknesses or improving your weaknesses. The difference is that it’s a lot easier to improve your strengths than your weaknesses because that’s why they’re your strengths. And so we worked first on my strengths to improve those. And then we started working on my weaknesses when my strengths were higher and we did continual surveys with people and people probably got sick of getting surveys from me. But at the same time, those surveys were extremely valuable and they told me if I was going on the right direction or on the wrong direction.

And, you know, that, that 2.8 that I had in my overall score in terms of like working with you, are you a good leader, that kind of thing, it moved up to a 4.3 over the course of about three years.

Anthony Codispoti: And so it’s an interesting strategy to focus first on those strengths, a little counterintuitive, you think, okay, here are my strengths, here’s what I’m already doing. Well, so let’s go focus on the other stuff first.

But the idea was get you some momentum, right? Like here’s things that you already are kind of naturally good at. Let’s, let’s prop those up a whole process of it. And then let’s go and focus on those things that we’ve identified are weaknesses. And, you know, hats off to you because that’s not easy to do. It’s one thing to say, Hey, I’m already really great in these four things. Let’s just, you know, fine tune the dials and, you know, help me accelerate there. But then just to admit to yourself that, Hey, here’s some stuff that maybe I kind of suck at, you know, that hurts. Yeah.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, it was not fun to say, Hey, I’m no good at in these areas. And, and I need to get better. And it took some discipline and it took his feedback and his holding me accountable to read the things that I needed to read to do the things that I needed to do in order to get me to that level that I needed to be at to move from just working as a, as a line worker into management that then propelled me into executive management and ultimately ownership.

Anthony Codispoti: What’s one weakness that you had to work on? And what was maybe the biggest difference maker for you in that work?

Beau Sorensen: I would say biggest weakness is it was being overly critical of people. And in some areas and some industries, that may be totally okay. But at least in our industry in Utah, definitely that’s not the path that you want to take. You want to be nurturing, you want to be helpful, and you want to be open.

And I was none of those things. And so he said, the first thing that you need to do in order to do that is to, he called it leadership by wandering around. And what that means is you get up out of your seat and you go talk to people. And it doesn’t mean that you’re going and you’re talking work necessarily, you’re going and you’re building relationships, because those relationships that you have with people will get them to then want to be with you and to want to work with you.

And so that right there was, I would say the single most impactful thing that I did to improve those scores, because as I got to know folks better, then we naturally became friends, we naturally started working better together, and we naturally built that trust.

Anthony Codispoti: So what does that actually look like? So you get up from your desk there, you walk outside and you’re like, hi, Jill, how was your weekend? Sort of as simple as that?

Beau Sorensen: It can be as simple as that. Yeah. And then going beyond that and starting to get to know their families and what they cared about. And just really focusing on them and saying, okay, I’m going to find out more about them. And, you know, I love to get stuff done. And so because I love to get stuff done, then a lot of times I just focus on something. And I don’t actually get up and talk to people because I’m like, I’ve got time. I don’t have time to talk to people.

But that’s the opposite of what I need to do. It’s saying, you know what, I’m going to get up. This is me getting things done, is getting up. And I had to schedule time.

I said, okay, here is the time when I’m going to get up, and I’m going to go talk to people. And I will be doing it for at least a half an hour. And so I did that at least twice a day. So an hour of my life was getting up and talking to people. And it wasn’t always the same people. It was going to the folks in our finance department and talking with them was going to our quality assurance people and talking with them, going to our marketing people and talking with them. So that I was building those relationships with everybody in the company, not just one group of people.

Anthony Codispoti: Were they a little taken aback when it we first started doing it? What’s Bo doing here?

Beau Sorensen: I think that they were a little surprised. But I think it was a pleasant surprise. It was like, Hey, I haven’t seen you out of your office, except when you get up to go do something. And then you immediately go back because you’re doing something. And so getting to know me as well and being open and vulnerable with them. And when they say, Hey, what’s going on with your family? Tell me more about that. Me then answering that and having myself be open in addition to just asking them about themselves really made a difference.

Anthony Codispoti: So there are a lot of other people listening to the story right now. And they’re like, Yeah, Bo, you described me like I’m very task oriented, like I’m at work to get work done. And they’re listening to your story. And they’re saying, Okay, but Bo, did that actually help you get more done? And that may be part of the wrong question. But it’s what people are wondering. So what would you say to that?

Beau Sorensen: I would say that it didn’t necessarily help me get more done in the sense that I didn’t do more work myself. What it did help is it did help me in my career. It helped me to be able to become more of who I needed to be as a person. And it helps me become more of who I needed to be as a leader. And so in that regard, it definitely helped me to get more done because I was able to progress. If I was always just focused on the tasks, I would be a great task guy from here to eternity. And I do a wonderful job in a lot of tasks related fields.

But where I wanted to go, which is ultimately me getting work done that I wanted to get done, which was to get into management, get into leadership, I had to do this in order to make that happen.

Anthony Codispoti: Bo, are there any daily practices that you find helpful? Keep you on track, keep you centered?

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, some of the things that I do is I try to focus on things that uplift me. And those things that uplift me, it can be spiritual things like reading the Bible, or it can be things like reading inspirational stories or conversations or talks, reading books that help build me. So things like the speed of trust, like good to grade, like First Things First, the leadership challenge, all of those books that helped me to grow and improve and setting aside some time to do that is one of those practices that really matters. And so I try to make sure that I take at least 20 to 30 minutes a day to do that.

Another one is getting exercise. And it’s easy to say, well, I’m just going to get to work and I’m going to work, and then I’m done, and I don’t have any energy to do anything else. But getting exercise throughout the day and sometimes that is taking some time during lunch to go out and take a little walk, or sometimes that is doing exercise before work.

Sometimes that’s doing it after work, but just making sure that I set aside time to focus on my physical needs as well as all of the other needs that I have.

Anthony Codispoti: What’s the best decision you’ve ever made for your business?

Beau Sorensen: The best decision that I ever made for my business, I would say it would be to fight that lawsuit. I mean, one option that we had was to give up and to just say, okay, we’re not going to do this, you could have it. And that is, I would say, my first inclination because I’m not somebody who naturally likes what, negative energy. And I knew that it would bring a lot of that into my life. But I also knew that this was the thing that I needed to do. And so I went forward and did it and have no regrets. And I would think that that’s the best thing that I have done for my business in that regard because I don’t know that we would be here if we hadn’t done that.

Anthony Codispoti: I’m sure that had to have been points along the way, even after you made that decision, where you’re probably questioning it, like, okay, this is even harder than I thought it was going to be. Maybe we should back out.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah, that was after year one and then after year two. And then as we moved into the midpoint of year three, I had no idea that it was going to take that long.

And it was a significant challenge through that entire area. Not that we were filing things every day, but what you said, there’s that negative energy that is constantly hanging over you, where it’s, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if the judge is going to say something.

You don’t know if there’s going to be a filing that’s going to just knock you off kilter. And so, yeah, it was significant stress through that three-year period. But in the end, it was the right move. And I feel grateful that we went forward with it.

Anthony Codispoti: Anything in particular, you wish more people knew about the industry that you work in, Bo?

Beau Sorensen: One thing that I wish people knew more is that it was, I say here and that it was really the way that I look at our industry is we should be the center of care. And that doesn’t mean that we should take away from hospitals and from doctors and facilities and all of that.

They all do great work. But the thing is, is that people want to get in their homes and they want that place of comfort and that place where they feel like this is my home base and we come into your home base rather than you going into our home base. And by doing that, the outcomes are better and ultimately people enjoy it more. And so, by knowing that that’s there and by knowing that this is an option and saying, you know, when you exit the hospital, can I get home health? Or alternatively, when you’re ready to die and I know that death is something that we don’t love as a society. But looking at that, you know, as I’ve done hospice for 20 years, I’ve come to say, you know, when I have a six month terminal diagnosis, I know exactly where I’m going. And I’m going straight on to hospice because I will have a better quality of life than trying to fight a terminal disease. And ultimately, that quality of life is what matters.

It’s not the quantity of life that matters. I would rather spend that time with my family, knowing that we are squeezing every drop out of life, then in a hospital saying, you know what, we’re going to try to fight this and it’s just not going to work. But hey, I’ve got another month.

Well, but it’s another month of you being in a facility and your family just coming to see you every day. So I would like for us to also change the way as a society that we think about death and think about the quality of our life, not just the quantity of it.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, that’s so poignant. My grandmother passed away several years ago. And, you know, she was getting near to the end of her life. She really was set on staying in her home, even though, you know, those times where she needed to go to a care facility to, you know, rehab something, she always had a great time because she’s a very social person and she loved being around and talking to people and telling and hearing stories. But, you know, there was just something about home that had been her place forever and she wanted to be there. And so, you know, we were able to reach out and, you know, employ the services of an organization like yours that could come in and, you know, kind of help her with those things. And so I was able to see firsthand. Yeah, exactly.

You want to be home because that’s where the heart is and that’s where you’re most comfortable. Absolutely. But I’ve just got one more question for you.

But before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, for everyone listening today, I know that you love this show because Bo has been an amazing guest. So please hit the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast apps so you continue to get more great shows like this. I’m also going to let you know the best way to get in touch with Bo.

And there’s two ways. We’ll include links in the show notes, but for those people who are listening, you can go to his LinkedIn profile and Bo is spelled D-E-A-U, and then Sorensen is S-O-R-E-N-S-E-N. And you can also email him at B-Sorensen, so B-S-O-R-E-N-S-E-N at fchhh.com. All right. So last question for you, Bo, as you look to the future, what changes are you most excited about that are coming in this industry?

Beau Sorensen: The change that I am most excited about, I’m really, really excited about what artificial intelligence is going to do. I mean, we’re on the bleeding edge right now in our industry. I know when you look at other industries, you might say, oh, they’re behind and I would agree with you, but it’s going to be able to do so much for our patients. And one of the things that has really been a transformation during the pandemic is bringing in telemedicine as well and being able to take care of people and monitor them when we’re not in the home, because that’s the single biggest concern is, yes, we’re in the home, but we’re only in the home a little bit every day or a little bit a couple times a week, depending on who that patient is.

With telehealth, you can be in there 24-7, 365. And then when you layer artificial intelligence on top of that, we can have a more personalized version of medicine where we are monitoring somebody. And I look at my Apple Watch that I’m wearing and how that monitors my vital sites. And as they add additional sensors to that, and it will suddenly say, okay, here is where Bo’s health is. And if I’ve got somebody or an AI monitoring that health and then saying, you know what, we need to actually intervene because Bo is getting to a point where he might have to go to a facility or where he’s getting his vitals are dropping or something is happening with him.

So then somebody from Home Health comes into my house, takes care of me and augments all of that, and then goes back out and it’s able to keep us healthier for longer. I think that that’s going to be transformational for our entire health system. We look at the cost that we have and you know, our healthcare system is a $2 trillion industry, which is so much money. And all of that money is going to, most of it is to acute care, is to people being in the hospital because of something that happened. And how much of that can we prevent by taking care of things up front with artificial intelligence, with Home Health and Hospice augmenting that. And then when necessary, you know, when people get in accidents, when people have actual acute things, then going to the hospital. And I see our whole health system being more holistic as we wrap artificial intelligence into everything that we do.

Anthony Codispoti: Are you currently offering some level of telehealth services through what you do?

Beau Sorensen: We do have some. We’re partnering with a company that actually does that. And we’re really, really aggressively moving forward with that telehealth. The AI to monitor is not quite there yet. So that’s the thing that I think is really going to be impactful. But so there’s still people who are taking a look at it. And you know, if somebody pops outside of a metric, then they do that, then, you know, they’ll call us or whatever. But it’s also not integrated in with an Apple Watch yet or with some wearables.

And so you still have to get on a machine, or you still have to, you know, put on a blood pressure cuff, something like that in order to get those readings. So it’s not real time data yet. But I see that being where we get in the future. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti: So when you say telehealth, this isn’t somebody, you know, like scheduling a Zoom call with their correct.

Beau Sorensen: Yeah. Sorry, we’ve used telehealth for remote, like remote patient monitoring is really what, what it’s called now, but it was called telehealth back in the late 2000s. And so that’s still the term that I use for it.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s, that’s fascinating. Well, Bo, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, you’re welcome. Happy to do it. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.