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Backstop

How it works

What happens between 6:40am and the knock on the door.

The booking has to land. Everything below exists to make sure it does — including the parts where the software gives up and a person takes over.
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  1. 01Your employeeAbout 2 minutes

    Requests care

    Care type, who needs it, the time window, and the address — which is often not their own. Type-specific intake asks about ages, allergies, mobility or pet temperament. They see their copay before they submit, and they see immediately if their plan blocks the request, with the specific reason: “Your plan allows 2 uses per week; you've used 2. Next available: Monday.”

  2. 02BackstopInstant, for centres

    Checks centre seats

    If they asked for a centre, we check live seat inventory and confirm on the spot. A seat is held for five minutes while they finish, then released — so two parents can't book the same chair.

  3. 03BackstopMedian under 90 minutes

    Matches and dispatches

    For in-home care we rank eligible caregivers — background check current, credentials valid for this care type, drive-time inside 45 minutes, availability free — then weight by reliability, whether this family has used and rated them before, and earnings fairness. Offers go out in waves: top 3, then 5, then 10. First accept wins.

  4. 04A human coordinatorIn parallel, for urgent requests

    Picks up anything the algorithm can't fill

    A request that nobody accepts does not fail. It lands in an ops queue where a coordinator works the phone. For same-day urgent requests a coordinator starts working it alongside automated dispatch rather than after it.

  5. 05BackstopLast resort, first-class

    Offers reimbursement

    If we still can't source someone, your employee uses their own person — a grandparent, a neighbour, their regular sitter — submits a receipt, and is paid within five business days at a capped daily rate. It draws on the same allowance. Nobody is ever shown a dead end.

  6. 06The caregiverOn the day

    Shows up and clocks in

    Geofenced clock-in within 250 metres and inside the booked window. If they haven't clocked in ten minutes past start, the booking is automatically re-matched at top priority and ops is paged. That failure mode is what kills a back-up care brand; we treat it as a P0 alarm, not a status.

  7. 07Both sidesAt the end

    Care note, copay, and proof

    The caregiver clocks out and files a care note — what happened, when. The copay is charged, the entitlement is consumed, and a row lands in your usage report tied to a real employee and a real invoice. Your HR team never sees the care note or the recipient's details.

The number that matters

Fill rate, not features.

Every provider in this category will show you an app. The only question worth asking is what percentage of requests actually got filled, and how long they took.

>90%

Fill rate target

Confirmed bookings ÷ requests

<90 min

Median time to confirm

Same-day in-home requests

>97%

Show rate

Caregiver clocked in on time

>35%

Repeat caregiver rate

By month 6 — the retention lever

These are launch targets, not achieved results. We report actuals against them monthly to every client, including the months we miss.

Questions

The things people actually ask.

How fast is “usually within hours”, really?
We target a median under 90 minutes from request to confirmed for same-day in-home care, with a worst case under 4 hours. Centre bookings with an open seat confirm instantly. We report actual fill rate and time-to-confirm to every client monthly — including the months it goes badly.
What happens if nobody accepts the job?
It escalates to a human coordinator, then to reimbursement, where your employee books their own person and we pay for it. There is no state in the system where a family is told 'sorry, no'.
Can an employee book care for someone who lives somewhere else?
Yes, and this is a real gap in most products. A parent in New York can book care for a grandparent in Arizona. Times are always shown in the care location's timezone, not the booker's device timezone.
What does the employee pay?
A copay per use, set by your plan — flat per day for in-home, lower for a centre seat, lowest for pet and virtual care. Copays exist mainly to cut frivolous bookings, not to generate revenue.
What happens when an employee runs out of days?
Your plan decides: either they can keep booking at the full unsubsidised rate, or the plan hard-stops. Both are configurable, and the employee is told which applies before they hit the limit.
What does my HR team see?
Utilisation, entitlement consumption, days of work saved, and invoicing detail. They never see who was cared for, medical notes, or care notes — that's enforced at the database view level, not by convention.

Watch it happen on a real booking.

We'll run your scenario live on the demo — your headcount, your care mix, your worst-case morning.

Book a 20-minute demo