Common questions
Straight answers, before you talk to anyone.
Written for families and caregivers, community centers and day programs, care agencies and community partners, funders and foundations, and health systems and providers, device companies, and developers. Where the honest answer is a limit, we say so in the same voice as the promise.

How you start: one call, a working preview, and the first 90 days
Your preview starts with one 30-minute call. Here is what happens next, and what we ask you to bring.
How do we start?
Book your call. One 30-minute call, then a working preview in your brand within 24 hours, loaded with sample people and sample notes. A self-serve path for smaller organizations is coming; today every preview starts with a call.
What does the preview cost?
Nothing. The preview is complimentary; we call the tier Preview Edition. No real health information is entered during the preview, and nobody signs anything before your team has tried it.
What should we bring to the call?
The people who will actually use it. Agencies: a scheduler, a nurse, and a family member if you can. Community and day programs: one week of your current closeout and your intake form. Health systems: whoever owns the program and whoever will ask the security questions.
How long does it take to roll out?
About ninety days, with our team beside you. Days 1 to 30: your brand, setup, guardrails, and staff sign-on scoped with your IT team. Days 31 to 60: your existing PDFs, videos, and FAQs become check-ins and lessons with your reviewers' approval. Days 61 to 90: training, a soft launch with one program, then rollout.
What content do you need from us?
Your logo, your colors, and your words. Then the PDFs, videos, and FAQs you already hand to families. We turn them into check-ins and lessons, and your reviewers approve each one before it goes out.
What do our IT team and our staff need?
Families need nothing to install: text, email, a code to scan, or a link to tap. Your staff use a web console with multi-factor sign-in. Staff single sign-on and any connection to your records system are scoped with your IT team during onboarding; no partner runs single sign-on today.
How is our staff trained?
In the third month, alongside a soft launch with one program. Your team's console holds a training library: branching simulations, short huddles, activity plans, and courses that run again with every new hire. Each learner can export a certificate. Planned, not shipped: an organization-wide training roll-up for managers.
Families and caregivers: what you will see, and who can see what
You will meet this through a center, agency, or hospital you already know. No sign-up is needed to read this page.
Read the Families, caregivers, and volunteers pageIs a day center just babysitting?
No. A good day at a day center has a shape and is built around the person: meals, activities, companionship, and skilled observation by staff who know your person and expect them. Ask a center near you for one afternoon and watch.
How do I get the app? Is there a download or a price?
There is no app-store download and no price for individuals. Someone already in your family's circle invites you, or your center, agency, or hospital does. Any cost comes through the organization you work with, so ask them.
Who sees my photos and messages?
The people invited into your family's circle. Your family's private space stays private until you choose to share something, and the health record can be locked behind a PIN. Access is scoped to each person's own community.
What if tonight's note is wrong?
Tell the center. A person on your center's staff read and approved the note before it reached you, and the AI cannot add a fact that is not in the day's record. Your center is the place to ask for a correction.
Can we get fewer messages?
For text messages, reply STOP at any time. For app notifications and email, ask the center or agency that invited you; they set the program. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help.
Who do I call with a question about my person's care?
Your center, agency, or hospital. Their contact information is where health questions go, tonight and always. For questions about genusConnect itself, use our contact page and tell us who you care for; we will point you to the right next step.
Will the app answer my caregiving questions?
Not questions about your person's care. The in-app helper can show you where something is on the screen and draft a caption for a photo, and you approve it before anything is saved. It does not give medical advice; health questions belong with your center or agency.
Community centers and day programs: a warmer front door, and the note a family reads tonight
For senior centers, faith and food programs, and family-support groups. And for the adult day and respite programs that hold a whole day together.
Read the Community centers and day programs pageIs this only for day centers, or only for GUIDE programs?
Neither. Any community program gets a warm front door by code, link, or shared tablet, and public resource pages under your name that need no login. Reminders, outreach, and volunteer coordination come with it. Day programs add one workflow from intake to an evening note. GUIDE partners are welcome; GUIDE is not required.
What do families see?
Your name and colors, not ours. If you turn on the family loop, they send a few words at drop-off in the morning and read an evening note that night. The note is drafted from what actually happened that day, in the style they chose at intake: warm, brief, or clinical. Reservation requests wait for your staff to approve, waitlist, or decline.
Who approves the evening note?
A person on your staff approves every evening note before it goes home. The AI drafts it from what actually happened that day, in four short sections: To talk about tonight, Ideas for home, Caring for yourself, For your next visit. It cannot add a fact that is not in the day's record.
How much typing does this add for floor staff?
Less, or we recommend pausing. Select everyone at the table, one choice, one button that reads Save for 14. The emotion dial includes Unable to tell, which stores nothing. A 3:45 readiness check flags gaps while staff can still fix them. We recommend pausing a rollout if the software adds duplicate after-hours work, and we build the reports so that can be seen.
Can closeout go straight to a payer or a grant committee?
Yes. The closeout lists scheduled, showed, no-show, and no record against billed, not billed, waived, and late fee, with no-show dispositions and a Finalized by name. Export a day or a Monday-to-Friday week as PDF or CSV without retyping a figure. Planned, not shipped: a participant-level date-range export and GUIDE documentation at confirmation.
What does it cost, and how do centers pay for it?
The preview is complimentary; we quote the rest on the call, not on a web page. About 79% of participants had some or all services paid by Medicaid in 2022 (NCHS Data Brief No. 502, 2024). The GUIDE respite allowance is $2,625 for the 2026 performance year, paid through a participating GUIDE program (CMS GUIDE Payment Methodology Paper v3.0, effective June 1, 2026). Older Americans Act dollars reach you through your Area Agency on Aging.
What will you not promise a day center?
No savings figure. No claim that attending postpones a move to residential care; the studies we have do not support that claim, and we cite them on our research page. No claim that skilled observation stops a hospital stay; it creates chances to notice and act. Respite is not metered here; the participating GUIDE program holds the allowance.
Care agencies and community partners: keeping people, families, and teams connected
Aides turn over and families call the office at nine at night. These answers are about what your families and nurses get between visits, under your name.
Read the Care agencies and community partners pageWill the AI give medical advice to our families?
No. When our AI drafts a lesson, a check-in, or a suggested reply for your team, a person on your team approves it first. In the family app, the helper shows where something is on the screen and drafts a photo caption for the family's own review. Health questions go to your agency the way they do today.
Do families need to install anything to start?
No. Text, email, a code to scan, or a link to tap reaches a daughter who will never download anything. Families can sign in with a one-time text code instead of a password; your staff use multi-factor sign-in.
Can each branch see only its own families?
Access is scoped by organization, site, and community, so branch roles see their own families. Regional roll-ups and per-branch reporting are set up with you during onboarding, and we walk your IT team through exactly how.
Who owns our content?
You do. Our terms say you keep ownership of the content you bring; we hold a license to host, use, and display it as needed to run the service. Your PDFs, videos, and FAQs become check-ins and lessons under your name, and your reviewers approve each one.
How does a wrong note or message get corrected?
Through your team. Anything our AI drafts on your behalf, such as a check-in or a lesson, stays a draft until a person on your team approves it. Most fixes happen there, before anything goes out. If something wrong reaches a family, your team decides how to correct it with the family.
Can a family turn messages down?
Yes. For text messages, replying STOP ends them. Families and your staff can also decide together how often check-ins and reminders go out, since your team sets the program. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help.
Does it work with our scheduling, EVV, or home-health EMR?
It works alongside what you already use. Text, email, QR codes, and your website reach families today, with nothing to download. Staff single sign-on and any connection to your records system are scoped with your IT team during onboarding; no partner runs single sign-on today. There are no shipped connectors, and we would rather say that plainly.
Funders and foundations: see what the money did, without becoming the operator
For foundations, grant makers, Area Agencies on Aging, and local levy bodies that fund community programs and adult day centers.
Read the Funders and foundations pageWill we see participant data?
No. Reports we prepare for funders are de-identified and aggregate; you are not given participant records. Access is scoped to each organization and to each person's own community, so you get oversight without becoming the operator.
Who owns the record?
Under our terms, the organization that brings content keeps ownership of it; we hold a license to host and display it as needed to run the service. We answer in writing, not on a web page, what leaves with a program if we stop or are acquired. We recommend asking us for that answer before the award is signed and writing it in.
What does a program pay in year three, after the grant ends?
Ask us for the number in writing before the award is signed, and write it in. The preview is complimentary; the price after that depends on the program, and we quote it on a call rather than on a web page. A grant should not fund software a program cannot keep.
Can we pause a rollout that is not working?
Yes. We recommend pausing a rollout if the software adds duplicate after-hours work for staff, and we build the reports so that can be seen. Documentation gaps are measured by site and shift, never by a named individual.
Do you publish outcome numbers?
Not without a dated, named source. Third-party figures carry their year and primary source, and pilot results are labelled pilot. We do not publish savings claims or outcome percentages we cannot hand you a study for. Measures are labelled by how far you can trust them: counted for you, measured with the record, or measured locally with no claim from us.
What is the pilot evidence so far, and whom may we cite?
You may name Henry Ford Health System, the University of Michigan, and the Helm pilot as they are described on our studies and company pages. Cite nothing beyond what those pages say. The family daily summaries were shaped in one pilot, so we say pilot, not centers. The Day Center Companion research page carries the white paper, the claim ladder that grades each claim by how far you can trust it, and every dated figure.
Can we cite your method in a proposal?
Yes, as a design lens, not as clinical proof. carePhysics (our method: ten evidence-based principles about how people stay engaged) draws on named behavior-change models with a reviewer bibliography behind them. Two ways to fund: place the platform at a program you already fund, or co-apply with us.
Health systems, providers, payors, and partners: what is built, what we scope with you, and what we will not claim
The answers your procurement team needs first. The detailed control inventory lives in the security overview we share under NDA.
Read the Health systems, providers, payors, and partners pageWhere does our data live?
On AWS, under our Business Associate Agreement with AWS. Protected health information is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is logged with identifiers redacted, and encryption keys are managed. Where exactly it is stored, and what you take with you if you leave, are questions we answer in writing during scoping, not on a web page. The detailed control inventory, including logging coverage and recovery windows, is in the security overview we share under NDA.
Who can see whose data?
Access is scoped to your organization, to each person's community, and to the signed-in user. Your staff use multi-factor sign-in; families sign in with one-time text codes. We say scoped rather than absolute on purpose; the role and permission detail is in the security overview.
Do you sign a Business Associate Agreement, and where do you stand on SOC 2?
We sign a Business Associate Agreement with partners who handle protected health information. On SOC 2 Type II, the honest phrase is readiness: the architecture supports the criteria, and there is no report to hand you yet. We say built for HIPAA-regulated care, then the specifics, and never more than we can show you.
What does the AI touch, and who approves it?
Your designated reviewers approve content before it is published, and AI-drafted content stays a draft until they do. In the console, every change our AI proposes, such as a reservation change or a note, waits as a proposal for a person to accept or reject. Locking or resolving an incident and finalizing a closeout are deliberately unavailable to the AI.
Which model providers see prompts, and under what agreement?
Sensitive exchanges and real-time analysis run on models we train and host ourselves; general tasks use leading frontier models. Identifiers are removed or minimized in prompts wherever feasible. Details of our model providers and their agreements are in the security overview.
How does it connect to our EHR and our identity provider?
Today it stands on its own and works alongside what you already use. Text, email, push, embeddable public pages, and real-time team chat are live. Staff single sign-on and any connection to your records system are scoped with your IT team during onboarding; no partner runs single sign-on today. There are no shipped EHR, FHIR, or HL7 connectors.
How does a patient reach the program without an app?
A patient scans the code on the discharge sheet, taps a link, or texts one word to 211-411, and the follow-up resources go to work under your name. Nothing to download. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help.
Device and technology companies: starting with Genus
Building an IoT device, a monitor, a transportation service, or a robotics solution? Entering the care market means connecting your product to the people, teams, and routines it is meant to support. Genus offers an ecosystem to build around: a place to connect your technology with communication, resources, and coordinated support.
Read the Device and technology companies pageIs this only for medical devices?
No. We welcome companies working on connected home devices, monitors, transportation, robotics, and other technologies that support everyday care. Start with the need your product addresses and the people you want to serve.
Can our product connect directly to Genus?
We review the available interfaces, information flow, permissions, and support responsibilities with your team. A live connection needs a supported, configured integration; it is not assumed from the device category.
How do we begin entering the care market?
Bring a product description, your intended audience, and one practical use case. Together we can define the care experience, integration needs, and a focused pilot.
Developers and product builders: starting with Genus
Use Genus as a launchpad. Developer kits help your team add new functionality to an existing ecosystem, bring a product to market faster, and learn from the people it serves. Start connected to Genus, with a path to a product that can stand independently.
Read the Developers and product builders pageWhat can we build with the developer kits?
Start with the functionality your audience needs: a new tool, a resource experience, a connection, or a service. We work with you to identify the kit components and integration approach that fit your product.
Can our product eventually operate independently?
Yes, that can be the direction from the outset. We plan the product boundaries, licensing, dependencies, hosting, and support needed for independent operation with your team.
How do we get started with a developer kit?
Tell us what you want to build, who it will serve, and whether you want to stay connected to Genus or work toward an independent product. We can then discuss the appropriate kit components, access, and a first development scope.
How your information is protected, and how the AI behaves
What protects your information, and how genusAI (our AI helpers that draft and propose; a person decides) behaves. The detailed control inventory is in the security overview we share with your team; here is what belongs on a web page.
How is health information protected?
genusConnect runs on AWS under our Business Associate Agreement with AWS. Protected health information is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is logged with identifiers redacted, staff sign in with multi-factor authentication, and backups are kept. Built for HIPAA-regulated care means exactly that list, plus a written control inventory we share with your team.
Which standards can you show us?
We are built for HIPAA-regulated care, and we say what that means. We sign a Business Associate Agreement with AWS and with partners who handle protected health information. We encrypt in transit and at rest, scope access, and log it. On SOC 2 Type II we are at readiness: the architecture supports the criteria, and there is no report to hand you yet.
Can access permissions be tailored to our organization?
Access is scoped to your organization, to each site, and to each person's own community, and roles see their own people. We walk your IT team through exactly how during onboarding. Role names and permission detail are in the security overview rather than on this page.
What does the AI actually do, and where does it stop?
AI drafts, people decide. Our AI helps your team write, find, and prepare: a draft lesson, a suggested reply, a proposed reservation change, an evening note. When AI drafts something on your behalf, such as an evening note or a lesson, a person on your team approves it first. It cannot add a fact about a person that is not in the record.
Will the AI give medical advice, and how do you keep its answers safe?
It does not give medical advice. Where an assistant answers general questions directly, it says so plainly. What the model writes passes a strict output check before anything is shown. Content the AI reads is treated as evidence, never as instructions, and any action the AI proposes waits for a person to approve it.
Which AI models process our prompts?
Sensitive exchanges and real-time analysis run on models we train and host ourselves; general tasks use leading frontier models. Identifiers are removed or minimized in prompts wherever feasible, and authors are asked not to put member data into content prompts. Details of our model providers and their agreements are in the security overview.
Do public resource pages expose any health information?
No. Public pages carry no protected health information and need no login; anyone can read them. Anything personal lives behind sign-in, scoped to your organization and to each person's own community.
The science, briefly: what shapes every check-in, lesson, and reminder
Every check-in, lesson, and reminder your app sends follows one method. We call it carePhysics (our method: ten evidence-based principles about how people stay engaged); it is a design lens, not a clinical claim.
What is carePhysics, in one breath?
Ten evidence-based principles about how people stay engaged in their own care, so a check-in feels like a hand on the shoulder, not one more notification. It is licensed as a method in its own right and offered as a design lens for your governance, not as clinical proof.
Which psychology models are actually in it?
Six behavior-change models: Social Cognitive Theory, the Health Belief Model, the Transtheoretical stages of change, Self-Determination Theory, social-support research, and Motivational Interviewing. Six instructional-design models shape how lessons are built, including ADDIE and ARCS. A reviewer bibliography sits behind each.
How do you build habits without nagging?
Small steps, cues, and one clear next thing. Check-ins, reminders, and short lessons run in the order and on the timing you set, and completion feeds back to the people who wrote them. Whether a habit forms is measured locally, in your program, not promised by us.
How is motivational interviewing applied?
As a lens for how check-ins and coaching prompts are worded: open questions, reflecting back, and the person's own reasons for change rather than ours. Staff and volunteers practice the same skills in short huddles and branching simulations before using them with a real person.
How do you learn what motivates someone and what gets in the way?
By asking plainly, and by watching what people actually do. Check-ins can ask about needs, barriers, and mood, and day programs ask about caregiver strain at intake as a baseline. Engagement and completion patterns are reported in aggregate so your program can adjust.
Does engagement data make the AI smarter over time?
It makes your program smarter, with people deciding each change. Feedback and completion scores flow back to the people who write the check-ins and lessons, and any change our AI proposes is a draft until a reviewer accepts it. Planned, not shipped: automatic program tuning from engagement patterns.
Where can I read the studies?
On our platform research page, and on the Day Center Companion research page, where every figure carries its date and source. Research pages are context, not validation of our software. Ask us for the study design behind any result you read there. If a study does not support a claim, we say so instead of softening it.
Did not find yours? Tell us who you care for, or what you run, and a person on our team will read it.
Talk to the teamMessage and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help.
