Private Duty, Home Health, and Hospice Agency Owners Experience a Tough First Half of 2020

2020 has been a tough year for many agency owners.

Owners have faced so many challenges related to the Corona Virus, and the constant changes being made to regulations. It’s almost impossible to keep up! As an agency owner, I feel it is my duty to share with you what has been my salvation during difficult times.

The secret to keeping my sanity has been my ability to network with other agency owners. I’ve been able to brainstorm and create internal processes, obtain shortcuts to success, and build a network of friends that speak my language. The Home Care Sales Mastermind program has been an incredible asset to organizations just like mine (and yours) around the county.

During the pandemic, Home Care Sales quickly jumped in and delivered a way for our mastermind members when they had to find referrals to replace the consistent flow from their facility accounts that seemingly dried up overnight.

Home Care Sales is not just a sales consultant team. We are a living and breathing organization that must face the everyday challenges that working in post-acute care provides us! That is why we quickly evolved our products from an outside sales force to an inside sales force. Now we also must evolve our Mastermind Program as well. We must forget about gathering in-person for mastermind retreats for the time being to solve our industry problems amid Covid-19 and provide agency growth through our mastermind meetings in new creative ways.

All the changes that we have endured for 2020 have led to exciting new ways of growing our companies and connecting with our members!

I want to share some of the success that mastermind members have received by working with us at Home Care Sales:

  • One of our clients has opened a whole new business line!
  • Another client has finally developed the sales team that his company was lacking.
  • Another client NOW owns multiple organizations throughout several states!
  • Another client has produced revenue numbers that they only dreamed existed! (check our video below for more info)

You see working within a group of open-minded thinkers has allowed our members to really dive in and learn, support, and consult with one another. Our members can accomplish more in one year than many others who try to go it alone.

This year we know you need support! We have it for you! We bring experts to our Mastermind Members to guide them through tough leadership discussions. Check out what some of our Mastermind Members have said about participating in our group! 

Our Mastermind members get access to our vault of products, tools, and consulting Rolodex! Additionally, we meet with our teams monthly and share a peek in the vault of products available to make your life easier.

Whether you need help starting outpatient therapy programs, or new inventive ways to get your agency noticed at hospital systems (July our special consultant will share just how she broke into hospital systems), or maybe you need to figure out hiring and retention. We have what you need to get it done.

To learn more go to http://homecaresales.com/mastermind/.

You can watch our mastermind interview. Our program isn’t based on your revenue, it is based on what you have accomplished and what you can contribute to the group members. If you feel lonely like many entrepreneurs, this exclusive home care, home health, and hospice agency mastermind group may be just the solution.

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Want to know how to be in the Top 10% of all marketers in the country?

We work with Marketers across the country, and the thing we see over and over is how many missed opportunities there are for referrals because the Marketer does not understand the depth and the breadth of what their service line can offer.

I was recently on a discovery call with an owner, and she said. My Marketer isn’t getting the referrals I need. She went on to say that the only referrals that were coming in were from the AL because that is where the Marketer had worked previously. 

I asked how the Marketer, Kayla, had been onboarded. She said the usual way, HIPAA, Infectious disease, company policy, etc. I asked had anyone shared with Kayla Home Health and the benefits policy manual or any home health orientation. The owner, Jennifer, reported – “Gosh No – that is only for clinical staff. We would not expect our home health marketers to know that.”

This is shocking to us. 

We wouldn’t let a caregiver or nurse go out into the field without the proper orientation to home care or home health, but routinely we see marketers who struggle to go beyond the basics.

Ask your Home Health marketers this question:

What are the 5 criteria that must be met to be eligible for Medicare Home Health?

Did they answer it off the top of their head? Or did they have to go look it up?

…Or By guidelines, can a Speech Therapist do a SOC?

…Or What do you need to have OT be provided to a patient?

Most Marketers get ‘on the job training,” and that means they learn by trial and error. This is costing you millions of dollars in lost revenue.

It’s not just Medicare agencies. We see this same problem within home care too.

While the main criteria for “eligibility” for In-Home Care is a payor source, we experience marketers who miss opportunities to care for clients because they don’t know how to position your agency as a support service to the Medicare Home Health or Hospice. 

That means your Marketer needs to know Home Health and Hospice too. They can then “speak” the language of the home health or hospice and have a logical discussion on how your caregiver will support the medical treatment plan in a non-medical way through your caregivers.

Knowledge = POWER

Get yourself to the top in 3 easy steps:

Step #1: Know your service line cold 

The Medicare Benefits Policy Manual is a great place to start if you are a Medicare Home Health or Hospice agency. If you are an In-Home Care company, list the services and payor sources you accept. Identify common diagnoses clients have. What differentiates your agency in the market. (Differentiation is Lesson 1 in the Achieve Program)

Step #2: Know the service line of your strategic partners – HH, Hospice and In-Home Care

Learn how to help them produce revenue or protect revenue.

Step #3: Be THE SENIOR CARE EXPERT!

If you are looking for a fast and easy way to achieve this position of THE SENIOR CARE EXPERT, then the ACHIEVE program is just for you!

This week we released lesson 4 of the Achieve program, we reviewed the criteria for Home Health, Hospice, and In-Home Care because we believe when you know your service line cold, you are in the top 10% of your competition.

When you know your strategic partners line Home Health, Hospice, and Private Duty / In-Home Care, you are in the TOP 1%. You become the SENIOR CARE EXPERT RESOURCE!

You will be known, trusted, and the GO TO PERSON in your market all when you spend 15 mins a week with us in ACHIEVE!

Sign up for ACHIEVE today!

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Readmissions: Still a BIG Problem!

Many of us are doing an amazing job managing patients and keeping them out of the hospital. I want all of you to realize that we may not be doing enough to make a significant difference.

What I have noticed is that we have made an impact, but many patients that end up being hospitalized were not appropriate for discharge or were not referred for our services. 

Check out some of the data that CMS has published about how much money they spend on hospital readmissions.  It is quite shocking.

  • CMS penalized over 2,500 hospitals by more than $564 million in 2017 for excessive 30-day hospital readmission rates
  • Readmissions of privately insured and Medicaid beneficiaries cost $8.1 billion and $7.6 billion, respectively
  • Medicare spent $14.3 billion on 1.3 million hospital stays associated with hospitalizations of nursing home residents. These costs represent 11.4% of Medicare Part A spending on all hospital admissions ($126 billion) in the same year.
  • Medicare spent an average of $11,255 on each hospitalization of a nursing home resident, which was 33.2% above the average cost ($8,447) of hospitalizations for all Medicare residents.

Data shows home health visits can reduce the likelihood of hospital readmission by as much as 25%. Successful home health care staff members and private duty home care agencies work as teams to monitor patients for potential health problems and together have the best outcomes of keeping patients out of the hospital. When integrated into the continuum of care, home health helps ensure that patients discharged from acute care settings and skilled nursing facilities do not suffer relapses that require rehospitalization.

The stakes are high with hospitals and health systems facing financial penalties under Medicare’s Hospital Readmission Reduction Program for a half-dozen conditions including heart attack, pneumonia, and coronary artery bypass graft. Beyond the HRRP penalties, readmissions increase the total cost of care and decrease the patient’s quality of life.  Here are some additional findings about readmissions that I think are significant:

  • Recent data from Paramount—a health insurance company affiliated with Toledo, Ohio–based ProMedica—shows that patients who utilize home health services within 14 days of discharge from an acute care facility are about 25% more likely to avoid a readmission within 30 days of discharge.
  • In a systematic review of heart failure patients published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, home nursing visits reduced readmissions and mortality for as long as six months.
  • In an observational study published in the journal Health Services Research, a combination of home health services and clinician visits decreased the probability of readmission by 8%.
  • In a study published in the Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, patients discharged from skilled nursing facilities to home care with a home health visit within a week of SNF discharge had a reduced hazard of hospital readmission

Home Care Sales has been working on post-acute care collaborations with teams that we mentor in our Mastermind Program. We know what metrics matter. You need to be thinking about what steps you can take to improve your readmission rates at your organizations. Capturing and sharing this information with your referral sources will make a difference in how they consider your agency over others. 

With readmissions, there are massive reasons for hospitals, skilled facilities, and LTACs (among others) to engage the services of home health, hospice, and home care as outlined in the statistics above. So what happens when your team gets their “moment” with a decision-maker at a referring facility? If they can’t spell out the ways your agency is benefiting thier patients and improving the overall process of referring, then you are at risk to lose some serious opportunities.

Train your team to know what to say when they get an opportunity. Show them how to turn a meeting into a referral. If you need help, we can absolutely help. Reach out to mike@homecaresales.com for more details.

I wish that home care sales existed back in 1995, when I was opening my first agency. I would have had a much easier time growing. I would have had the tools that I needed to help get patients identified every time. I would have known the exact words to trigger referrals. 

The good news is folks, we are here for you now! Go to www.homecaresales.com and check out the Mastermind Program, and the incredible programs that we have that will help stop the readmissions! Let’s get every patient that needs and deserves your services identified and treated by your organization.

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The Current Conditions and Fear of Rejection

I just got off the phone with a franchisor who was looking for help for her owners.

She said, “our owners are concerned with the “new world  COVID” and how it impacts Marketing.”

I shared we all are. This IS a new world!

I currently manage a team where each one of them has different levels of access in their territories. Each marketer has to navigate “No Access – only remote marketing to “parking lot sales calls” at the facilities to full “access” but only for “special” reps i.e., reps they “like.”

This is our new marketing reality for Home Health, In-Home Care, and Hospice.

Part remote marketing, part “Social distancing Sales Calls across a car hood,” ALL creativity, ALL the time!

This franchisor said you know the concern we hear the most is that our owners “just don’t like marketing or selling.”

I hear this all the time!

And here is what I say:

NO Marketing = NO Money

It is true! If you do not market – you will not get referrals. Then you WILL have no money. And I REALLY want you to have money. Because I know when you make money, you do REALLY good things in your community and plow it back into client care.

I know this to be true.

What is your mindset currently on? …marketing? …Sales?

Anything negative come up?

I bet it is because you fear rejection. NO one likes rejection. It’s hard to hear. It’s worse to “feel.”

I have 2 ways that I overcome the fear of rejection.

1. My Mission – is bigger than their “NO.”

My agency delivers the best care in my area.  I bet yours does too.  I want EVERYONE who deserves care to get it from my agency.  I bet you do too.  If I do not “market” that patient, client, or resident will get some other agencies’ care – or worse – NONE.  It is my MISSION to get everyone who deserves care – a referral – to my agency for the BEST care! MY MISSION IS BIGGER THEN THEIR “NO”

2. System.

You hear us say it all the time.  When you have a structure, you get FREEDOM!  When you know the words to say and the order to do the activity – YOU HAVE CONFIDENCE!  And now – you are not “afraid” to market – YOU ARE A CHAMPION!

This transitional COVID world needs you – MORE of you and your agency!

Together we are learning from each other. What is working and applying it weekly to our achieve program (want to learn more? Click here)

Together we also benchmark. Gain key performance indicators for the industry.

WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU STACK UP?

Our friends at Home Care Pulse are doing a COVID survey and would like your input.  Please take a moment to complete the survey and see how you stack up compared to your peers.

Click here for the survey

YOU GOT THIS! The world needs to hear from you!

Join us!

Together we GROW!

Melanie

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It Worked! – Our Past Patients/Clients Have Come Back To Us Asking to Help Once More!

Prior to March 2020, my agency was receiving over 185 admits a month from hospital accounts. 

Then the Corona Virus bought all hospital admissions to a halt.

The month of April my hospital admissions fell to an all-time low of 35 admits. That is close to 4/5 of this account’s referrals GONE, seemingly overnight. 

But guess what! 

My Total April Admissions only dropped by FIVE admissions!

Yes, even though the hospital and SNF with rehab referrals dried up overnight, my agency hit its monthly admission goal.

You are probably asking: How did we do that? 

Well, that is what I want to share with you. It was not hard to accomplish. I just had to switch the way I looked at the business. I had to see, where would those patients that need services to be diverted to, if they couldn’t get into the hospital right now, or should avoid a hospital admission because of comorbidities’ that made contracting the coronavirus not just possible but probable. Where could I find them, and provide them with services?

As a consultant, I was receiving questions asking for help in business development from clients that had been successfully using our High Performance Sales Process, and once again we delivered a solution.  d

Our inside sales system is here –  https://homecaresales.com/inside-sales-training/

Some of the questions we got:

  • What happened to our referrals?
  • Why aren’t we getting referrals from facilities?
  • What should we do with our sales team?
  • Should we layoff our liaisons?
  • My facility liaisons cannot get access. What should I have them do now?

Melanie and I very quickly adopted strategies with the clients we manage and put them on an inside sales system. We also scripted Call Me Scripts, that we used to reach out to past patients. Scripts to build a referral relationship with every client on services primary care physician. Scripts to keep us top of mind for patients that may need our services. Using the inside sales process and the “Call Me” Program that we created, we had reps that not only brought in the same number of admissions prior to COVID, but now, using the inside sales system and “Call Me” Program,  they exceeded and hit their highest admit numbers in their companies history. 

This Thursday we will have a webinar that will deliver for you the necessary steps to have an incredible program to open another pipeline of referrals! 

I know that the old way of getting referrals was temporarily destroyed.  In the past most of our referrals came from the following account types listed in numerical order of highest potential for referrals to lowest:

  1. Hospitals
  2. Rehab transitional care hospitals
  3. SNF/with rehab
  4. ALF’s
  5. PCP offices.

Now, post-Covid, the PCP offices, have become the number one referral source. Too many of us have not done a great job of breaking into doctor’s offices. The problem is, how can I build a relationship with the doctor’s offices if I can’t even get in the door?  Well, do not worry that problem has been solved.

 

Join “The Solutionist” Cheryl Peltekis, RN for our educational webinar on June 11th, 9 am Pacific Time, 11 am Central, 12 noon eastern. 

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How do you ask for a referral?

How do you ask for a referral?

We have worked with thousands of sales reps across all the business lines, home health marketers, in-home care sales reps, hospice liaisons, and one thing we know for sure – You have to ASK for the referral.

Here’s the problem – most reps have a FEAR of asking. They think:

  • That’s SUPER SALESY
  • Oh, they know why I am here
  • I already give them handouts to help

Your referral sources NEED to be ASKED for a referral.  They are busy!  And you do not “own” their mind share!

EASIER Said than DONE!

Let’s take a little assessment together (if you are an owner or sales manager ask your reps):

Step 1 – BE HONEST. 

How many of you ASK for a referral EVERY TIME you are in front of a referral source?

EVERY TIME.

Most reps ask “sometimes,” but not every time.

Step 2 – How do you ask?

Maybe you ask like this:

“Do you have someone we can help?”

“Do you have a referral today?”

“Do you have someone who could benefit from Home Care?”

The challenge is with the above questions – they have to “know” what you do to identify a patient or client for services.

We both believe that many referral sources struggle to identify patients and clients because they lack the knowledge of your breadth and depth of services.

Step 3 – Trigger a Referral

Does the way you ask “Trigger” a referral while you are there?

When we do this exercise in our programs and ask them to share how they ask for a patient or client, the reps will have 2-3 “go-to” ways they ask for a referral. At least half of the questions are like the questions in Step 2, and when we ask the follow-up question – “How does that work for you?” “What % of the time do you walk out with a referral?” 

The answer is rarely.

You see… the problem is not with the sales rep. It is with the question.

Specifically, how the question is positioned.

Does it reach into the current caseload of patients and “pluck” out the one you want for your agency.

In Lesson 2 of the Achieve program, we focus on crafting the Top 10 ways to ask for a patient or client.

The keys to success are:

  1. Open-ended questions always work better to generate conversations about patients or clients
  2. NEVER stop at a feature – no one “buys” features they only “buy” benefits
  3. Having 10 questions will give you the tools you need in just about any referral source encounter

As a sales rep, there is NOTHING more empowering than having the confidence in my skills and proven tools when I am going on a sales call either in person or virtual!  

As a sales manager, it is my job to get my reps the tools they need to have that confidence!

Sharpen those skills – EVERY WEEK!

If you are looking for weekly ‘skill sharpening” for you or your team, look no further. We have created something just for you!

Go check out ACHIEVE or email Mike@HomeCareSales.com to Discover the Keys to Succeed!  

Giving you the FREEDOM to GROW!

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