Help
Questions, answered plainly
The short version of everything people ask. If your question isn’t here, the feedback page reaches a human.
What is Tugboat
- What is Tugboat Caregiving?
- Tugboat is an AI care navigator for family caregivers of aging loved ones. You’re the captain — the one keeping everything in your head. Tugboat helps you see what’s coming next: free tools that orient you fast, and a paid Care Graph that keeps a living record of your loved one and tells you what the next 90 days likely hold. It was built by a family caregiver, not a hospital or an insurance company.
- Who's behind this?
- John Regan — sole caregiver for his 86-year-old father and his aunt for over eight years. Tugboat is the tool he needed and couldn’t find. There’s a small fleet of AI agents doing the around-the-clock work, and a human (John) in the loop. More on the About page.
- Is Tugboat medical advice?
- No. Tugboat gives orientation — what’s likely coming, what questions to ask, who to call. It is not medical, legal, or financial advice, and it never replaces your loved one’s doctors, an elder-law attorney, or a licensed advisor. We say this everywhere, and we mean it.
Privacy & your data
- What happens to what I type into the free tools (Navigator, Tech Plan)?
- Nothing is stored. Both tools are anonymous — no account, no saved history. Your situation is processed to generate your answer and is not kept.
- Where does my Care Graph data live, and who can see it?
- Your Care Graph is stored in your account on Google Cloud (Firestore), encrypted at rest, and every request is checked server-side so only your sign-in can read it. Nobody else’s account can see your loved one’s record. We don’t sell or share your data.
- Do the emails Tugboat sends contain my loved one's health details?
- No. The monthly outlook-refresh email deliberately includes only your loved one’s first name and the titles of what’s coming (for example, “Set up a healthcare proxy”) — never conditions, medications, or notes. Every email has a one-click stop link.
- Is Tugboat HIPAA-compliant?
- Tugboat isn’t a healthcare provider or insurer, so HIPAA doesn’t apply to us the way it does to your doctor. What we do instead: minimal data collection, encryption, strict account-only access, and no selling or sharing of your information.
- Can I delete my data?
- Yes. You can delete any loved one’s care graph from your account at any time. To delete your entire account and everything in it, reach out through the contact page and we’ll remove it promptly — and confirm when it’s done.
Membership & billing
- What's free and what's paid?
- Free, no account needed: the Caregiver Navigator, the Tech Plan builder, all 8 journey guides (core sections), the Atlas, and everything in Media. Free with an account: a Care Graph for one loved one with one 90-day outlook. The $9.99/month founding membership unlocks: unlimited loved ones and outlook refreshes, the monthly “what changed” email, the full Tech Plan, and the “Going deeper” depth in every guide.
- How do I cancel or manage my subscription?
- From your Care Graph page, click “Manage subscription” — it opens your secure billing portal where you can cancel, update your card, or download invoices. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your billing period. No phone calls, no retention scripts.
- Why "founding member"?
- $9.99/month is the founding price for the people who joined early and helped shape Tugboat. Lock it in and it’s yours.
Using the tools
- Where do I start?
- If something just happened — a fall, a diagnosis, a hospital call — start with the free Navigator: describe your situation and get your first three moves. If you’re wondering what technology could actually help (and what to skip), the Tech Plan takes two minutes. If you want Tugboat watching the road ahead with you, that’s the Care Graph.
- What's a Care Graph?
- A living record of your loved one — their situation, conditions, key people, and timeline — that Tugboat’s AI reads to produce a “next 90 days” outlook: what’s likely coming, why it matters, and the first move for each. It refreshes as life changes, and members get an email when something new enters the window.
- I found a problem / I have an idea.
- The feedback page goes straight to John. Bug, confusing screen, feature wish — all of it welcome. And if you’d rather talk to a human about your situation, you can request a one-on-one session from the Navigator page.
Didn’t find your answer?
Send it through the feedback page or the contact page — a human reads everything, and real questions become new answers on this page.