Helping Military Families Secure
Long-Term Care

Professional

2003

Veterans Home Care helps wartime veterans and their surviving spouses access their guaranteed VA benefits. Yet, it’s a struggle for many veterans to obtain in-home personal care. After witnessing this firsthand, Bonnie Laiderman set out to change the quality of life for thousands of military families nationwide.

Established in 2003 in St. Louis, Missouri, Veterans Home Care outpaced other providers, reaching the Inc. 5000 list five times and becoming an invaluable resource for tens of thousands of veterans and their families across the United States.

Founded by Chief Executive Officer Bonnie Laiderman, Veterans Home Care is one of the largest women-owned businesses in St. Louis and the largest provider of its kind. The company partners with home care providers and veterans agencies to get the benefits and support they need. These benefits include assistance bathing, dressing, meal preparation, light housekeeping, and companionship in their own home. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) covers these expenses due to their honorable service.

All told, the company has helped over 19,000 veterans receive the benefits and care they need to thrive after completing their service.

The company operates out of its headquarters in St. Louis, where most of its 120-person staff reside. The company also has field agents throughout the United States. When Veterans Home Care faced steep growth in 2015, they turned to Nextiva to upgrade their business communications capabilities.

Favorite Features: HIPAA-Compliant Voice, Video and Fax, NextivaONE App, and IVR

“Communication is everything. The key reason we reached out to Nextiva is that we needed a bigger system than what we had.”

Business communications built for high growth

Communication is critical to Veterans Home Care’s day-to-day operations. A typical day involves working with veterans, home care providers, and agencies to source benefits for qualifying families, set up care, and advocate for clients navigating the federal government.

“Communication is everything,” said Veterans Home Care Chief Financial Officer Howard Laiderman. “The key reason we reached out to Nextiva is that we needed a bigger phone system than what we had.”

As the company looked to scale its communications capabilities, they found Nextiva to be the answer they were looking for, offering both the flexibility and the ease of use their team needed to stay in constant contact with customers and various stakeholders.

Communication is everything. The key reason we reached out to Nextiva is that we needed a bigger system than what we had.

Howard Laiderman

Since Veterans serves at-risk clients, they need a business communications platform that offers zero downtime and the ability to connect via any device, anywhere in the U.S.

“Our team is using Nextiva all day long,” Laiderman said. “We can merely dial an extension and our team members receive the call on whatever phone they have access to.”

Veterans Home Care President Larry Kay emphasized the NextivaONE App plays a critical role in enabling team members to be responsive to customers and colleagues. “Right now, I have four different ways for people to contact me via Nextiva. I have business phone capabilities anywhere I go.”

Nextiva made it easy for Veterans Home Care team members to stay in contact with each other, hold meetings, conference with colleagues and customers, and remain reachable as they worked from home and the road.

Veterans Home Care Vice-President David Laiderman also sees Nextiva playing an even more integral role in Veterans’ growth strategy as the company continues to scale. “One really cool technology we are excited about leveraging with Nextiva is the IVR technology,” Laiderman said. “We are looking at doubling our business over the next couple of years. That’s a lot of people to talk to. We plan to leverage the IVR technology to prioritize where we spend our time and who we talk to.”

From a business standpoint, Veterans Home Care is all about adding value to its communications capabilities, allowing them to respond to clients faster. “It all goes back to how we leverage technology to enhance the caregiving experience to our clients and provide a higher level of service to our customers and our partners around the country,” said Laiderman.


Reliability and peace of mind where it counts

A final key component of Veterans’ experience with Nextiva is the trust, reliability, and peace of mind Nextiva affords them.

“I never think about Nextiva because it’s never an issue,” said Kay. “The best system is one you never think about because it’s always working. That’s what Nextiva is for us.”

In dealing with thousands of customers around the country, Veterans cannot afford to deliver a poor experience. Downtime or outages can mean the difference between their veterans receiving the aid they need and total isolation. To that end, the Veterans leadership team recognizes the value of Nextiva’s reliability and uptime to keep their operations humming at all times.

The best system is one you never think about because it’s always working. That’s what Nextiva is for us.

Larry Kay

Nextiva also has HIPAA-compliant offerings across voice, video, and fax, giving Veterans Home Care the ability to uphold patient privacy and confidentiality.

All told, Veterans is thrilled with how Nextiva has helped their growing business. David Laiderman highlighted Nextiva’s impact on their customer experience as a crucial benefit to their company. “For us, Nextiva is all about making sure we can enhance our customer experience. We can connect with more clients quicker, talk to them, make sure everything is okay, and give them the care and quality of life they deserve.”

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