Home Health Marketing Strategies: Transitional Care Management

We made an appt for Mom at her PCP within seven days of her d/c from the hospital. That is just good practice.

He didn’t even know she was in the hospital until we called and talked with his nurse when Mom got home. So when I flew home the following Monday, we went into the PCP office.

He really is an excellent doctor. My Mom has been going to him for YEARS! My Mom has great confidence in him.

He completed a physical exam and reviewed her hospital discharge report. He kept asking Mom when did she get out of the hospital. She couldn’t remember. I couldn’t either. We managed to narrow it down to 2 days.

My brother had been with her during that time, so I texted him. The doctor found it on the paperwork, started counting on his fingers, and said, ” Okay, great, six days ago!”

…And then said:

“Alright, great, I can click this and say it was less than seven days ago.” And a light bulb went off – Transitional Care Management – TCM!

So I asked.

“Are you asking that for TCM?” He said. “I don’t know what that is, but if you click this button if the patient is in the office before seven days d/c, the billers are happy.”

What is Medicare Transitional Care Management (TCM)?

 

According to AAFP: Transitional Care Management (TCM) services address the hand-off period between the inpatient and community setting. After a hospitalization or other inpatient facility stay (e.g., in a skilled nursing facility), the patient may be dealing with a medical crisis, new diagnosis, or change in medication therapy. Family physicians often manage their patients’ transitional care.

TCM coding: 

 

The two CPT codes used to report TCM services are:

  • CPT code 99495 – moderate medical complexity requiring a face-to-face visit within 14 days of discharge
  • CPT code 99496 – high medical complexity requiring a face-to-face visit within seven days of discharge

 

If you have a patient or client discharged from the hospital, you can be a HUGE asset to that PCP to prompt them that their patient has been D/C’d from a hospital and may be eligible for TCM billing.

How many times do PCPs not even know a patient was in the hospital?

My Moms PCP didn’t know.

We called him!

Imagine all the bonus points you would get if you alerted your PCPs to patients or clients who have recently D/C’d so they could make that appointment in the office within 7 or 14 days from D/C?

You would be the HERO!

 

Isn’t that so cool!

We have a whole module on TCM and how to help position you as the agency of choice when you help your PCPs PRODUCE MORE REVENUE!

This is your time to be a true care partner!

Ready to go deeper in TCM?

Reach out to Mike and discover the module!

 

Together We Grow!

Melanie

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2022 Sales Plan Development Guide

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

As the calendar year draws to a rapid end, many of us are eager to have 2021 be in the rearview mirror. The fourth quarter is the time of the year that sales teams start to plan for the upcoming year.

Like most sales executives, you are focused on using the precious few selling days between now and year-end. Unfortunately, you are also tasked with creating your 2022 business development plans. Hopefully, this guide will help you make it with a little more ease.

The most important thing to know before anything else gets done is what you will be responsible for next year.

What is your mandate?

What are you accountable for accomplishing?

Are your bonuses structured for 2022?

What will make your boss pat you on the back and proclaim you are a rock star?

 

First things first, nail down the goals of your VP, CEO, CFO, COO (whatever the title you report to), so you understand what they expect from you!

    • What growth goals have been set for the company?

    • What part of the growth goals are you and your team are responsible for?

    • What services will be emphasized?

    • What markets will be targeted?

    • What major sales initiatives will be started in 2002?

 

Ideally, there is a well-structured plan or system for setting and hitting the company’s goals. A strong plan provides you with the direction to build action steps to hit 2022 goals. Once you have the goals set, you need to think about the overall framework for planning.

Start building your Strategy!

 

Strategy is all about how. It is how you are going to achieve those goals that are primarily dictated by your leadership. They could include things like:

    • Key Accounts to target

    • Growth percentages

    • Growing Gross Margins by seeking certain client / Patient types that have higher reimbursement

    • Improving public image by doing more community events

    • New products / program launch

 

Structure:  Structure follows Strategy. Structure describes the pieces related to how your sales resources will be organized, distributed, layered, and compensated.

    • Territory management and expansion

    • Inside sales development

    • Sales Budget

    • New and expansion business (Hunters/Farmers)

 

Sales:  This is where you want your most valuable resources, your clinical team, to benefit from the new business coming in the door.

This is the time of year to have your sales reps have a virtual meeting with the caregivers providing services in their market space and discuss what doctors do they want more patients from? What is the best facility for them to work with?

When you support growth where the clinical teams what to do business it is a win-win for everyone. You can also suggest that the sales executives take the clinicians out to meet the accounts! These meetings can be remarkably successful.

    • Training needs for 2022: consider new product training

    • Resources for 2022 such as promo items, marketing materials

    • Compensation and Quota setting for 2022

    • Reward and Recognition for 2022

 

People:  Your organization will succeed or fail based on the strength of your people. You need to plan on recruiting and retaining exceptional clinical talent. To hit growth projections, you need additional clinical team members to grow!

    • Recruitment Process Improvement Program

    • Retention Program and Committee

    • Allocation for the budget to include additional recruiting

    • Orientation programs that produce highly qualified staff

    • Ongoing personal development, training, and coaching

 

Process:  Process is at the heart of getting things done. A good process removes friction! Process is not a bad word.  Process makes getting to your goals easier.

As you start to think about next year, start looking around your organization and ask, are the current processes making things easier or more difficult? Could we make changes that would save us time? What needs an upgrade?

Stop and take the time to evaluate your existing processes and determine if they are going to help you achieve your goals or create another problem that needs to be fixed? Could you onboard 40 new employees a week? If you can’t answer that with a resounding YES, then you need to fix your onboarding system. (see our recruiting and retention program here)

Build Your Roadmap To Hitting Your Goals

# Step One:

Start by listing each category, Strategy, Structure, People, and Process. Under each category list the appropriate measures that apply in your organization.

# Step Two:

Scan down the list of measures and identify what components are currently out of alignment with your 2022 goals.  They are the ones you need to allocate more of your time to get them in alignment or you will set yourself up for failure.

# Step Three:

Now it is time to assess each of the problem areas based on some key metrics.

 

    • Complexity: Challenges are associated with timing, resources scarcity, or cultural barrier from within the organization’s leadership. Use a ranking system 1 – 10 where 1 is an easy fix, and 10 will require specific efforts and buy-in from all levels of the organization.
    • Impact: This refers to the positive effect this initiative would have on attaining your goals if time and energy were invested.  Here you are trying to assess how much benefit you would gain by focusing on this process issue. Again use 1-10 scale where 1 means focusing here would barely move the needle and 10 means it would significantly impact your year.

# Step Four:

This is the most challenging part of the planning. Since we all know there is never enough time or money to do everything we want, it’s time to prioritize all of your potential initiatives. Start at the top of your list and assign each potential initiative a letter grade of A, B, or C.

An “A” means this initiative is critical to your success, and you will unlikely reach your goal if this is not addressed.

A “B” means important but not essential, and “C” refers to something that, in all likelihood, will have to wait for another year.

 

Be careful here – the usual tendency is to rate most or every this as an “A”.

 

Unfortunately, you need to be brutally honest with yourself here. You may need to go back over the list a couple of times, but you should aim for an even distribution of As, Bx, and Cs.

 

I made you a quick spreadsheet that you can download and make your own. Download 2022 Business Development Guide Here!

# Step Five:

 Create the Plan: Goal #1

Initiative 1:
TACTICS LEAD/SUPPORT TIMELINE SUCCESS MEASURE
Initiative 2:
TACTICS LEAD/SUPPORT TIMELINE SUCCESS MEASURE

 

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing how and what, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.

It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organization’s capabilities, linking Strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the Strategy. Synchronizing those people and their various disciplines and aligning rewards to outcomes.

It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company’s capabilities to meet the challenges of an ambitious strategy. In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it!

Be successful in 2022! Have a plan and execute it!  If you find that your plan includes having a sales team, don’t forget that we can be your sales manager!

Want to learn more email Mike@homecaresales.com or reach out to me directly at Cheryl@homecaresales.com.  We are here for you!

 

Keep Helping, Keep Serving,

Cheryl Pelekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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Please don’t let your marketers sound like this jackwagon

As you know, I have been caring for my Mom and have been traveling quite a bit. I recently received an “unsolicited” voicemail on my phone.

Every time I get a voice message or email, I always look at it through the lens of being a marketer. As a business owner I think, “is this compelling to get me to call them back?”

As you know, Cheryl and I have been upgrading many of our proven Home Health, Home, and Hospice marketing educational messages to include “remote” voicemails and emails.

We work really hard to make the educational messages compelling, business relevant, and with integrity.

Back to the voicemail.

He left the following message:

“Hey, this is JW from HW office. I just had a quick question for you. So please give me a call back at xxx.xxx.xxxx.”

 

Now when I listened, I was not sure who this was.

Was he a client? Was he someone I met at a recent conference? I didn’t know.

But if he was a client or potential client, I wanted to get him the info he needed to move his business forward. I was at a doctor’s appointment with my Mom, and I went to the car to return the call.

He said:

“This is JW.”  I said, “Hello JW, this is Melanie Stover returning your phone call.”

 

JW: “Oh great, Melanie, a while back, you ordered our cards on how to overcome objections, and that’s just the start of what we have to offer. Tell me, how did you like the cards?”

 

(Challenge #1 – While he didn’t lie on the Voice Mail – he used vagueness and omission to get me to call him back)

Me: “Yes, I got your cards to thank you. They were interesting.”

JW: “Interesting. Hmmm. What industry are you in, Melanie?”

 

(Challenge #2 – JW didn’t bother to even google my name – smart prospecting is at the VERY least know SOMETHING about your prospect)

Me: “Healthcare- Home Health, Hospice, and In-Home Care.”

JW: “Huh. So you don’t sell anything, and you bought objection cards? Do you bill insurance?”

 

(Challenge #3 – Open-ended questions would have got him the correct answers or at least learned how he might position his services as a solution to any of my problems, but he asked a closed-ended, yes-or-no question)

Me: No, I do not bill insurance, but the agencies I work with do.

JW: “Ok yeah, well, I don’t know much about how healthcare works with sales. But we appreciate you ordering the cards. Hope you have a good day.”

 

(Challenge #4 – don’t throw in the towel. Ask me some good open-ended questions. I spent $30 with them previously – why not ask – how I was using them? If I didn’t like my purchase – What would have made them better?)

He missed so much opportunity to LEARN SOMETHING – EVEN IF I was NOT going to buy anything else. How many times do you think you have “left something on the table? And just walked away from an account.

That is why we have a specific script for Step 4, the Reveal Call – before you exit – you can ALWAYS learn something that might save this account OR help you at the following account!

Me: “You too.”

JW: “Bye”

Me: “Bye”

JW did a few things that turned me off right away. He was not getting my business because of it.

I was busy with my Mom I really didn’t want to take the time to return his call but didn’t want to chance that it was one of our clients.

So when I quickly realized it was a sales call, that didn’t feel good.

What could he have done instead?

We teach in our programs to gain interest and create a compelling valid business reason for calling back.

He used vagueness as his “reason to call back,” and that is not enough.

Here is the framework we teach:

  • WHO – Who are you, where are you from
  • WHAT – Reason for your call – Educational message
  • WHY – What’s in it for them
  • CTA – call to action for a callback

And do it all with INTEGRITY!

Is INTEGRITY a differentiator?

 

I would submit to you YES!

A Home Health Marketer, Hospice Liaison, or In-Home Care rep with integrity SAVES your referral sources TIME! And TIME IS MONEY!

JW is not saving me time. In fact, he COST me time when I should have been moving on to another appointment with my Mom.

How are your reps being perceived by your referral sources?

Do you know what voicemails your reps are leaving?

Do they have all the components of our framework?

Do you get callbacks from your VMs?

We have got the library of scripts and templates for you in our Roadmap to Referrals Program if you don’t. Click here to grab a time on Mikes’s calendar that will work for you to explore more!

Together We Grow!

Melanie

 

P.S. I might have been home for too long. The original subject line (for those in western PA) was “don’t be a jag like this guy.” But then I thought the rest of the country would have no idea what I was talking about! Go Stillers!

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Continuing Adaptation – How OT helped my Mom be safe and how it plays into Marketing for Home Care, Hospice, and Home Health

This week I am back at Mom’s, taking her to all her follow-up appts – it’s about one a day plus her Home Health visits.

The Home Health Nurse, OT, and PT are weaving around my Mom’s Dr’s schedule and doing a great job!

My Mom lives in a cape-cod style house where the whole upper floor is her bedroom, and she upgraded her bathroom a few years ago to her dream bathroom.

As you can imagine, her “patient-centered goal” is to get upstairs to sleep in her bedroom and use that bathroom.

 

However, since her daughter is an OT (that would be me, and she now refers to me as the taskmaster to all the healthcare professionals we have appts with :-0 ), she is in my childhood bedroom on the main floor using a transfer tub bench and a handheld shower that I had my brother install before she got home from the hospital.

This adaptation is “fine” with her now, but she wants to go upstairs in her own bed and her awesome shower.

But, she is limited right now. Standing in that awesome shower comes with risk. I don’t know who thought that tile would be a good idea, but just yesterday, I nearly bit it walking out – it’s SUPER slippy when wet!

She is limited, but she has a CLEAR OT and PT goal – upstairs, her own room, her own bathroom. She is learning new compensation techniques that will serve her in achieving her goal.

She will be there in no time. I see her getting stronger every day. My other brother Justin just got here today from AZ to take the ‘next shift” of “Mom helping” when I return home this weekend.

What does this have to do with you and marketing?

 

  1. COVID has made us “adapt” – pre COVID we marketed one way – “post-event” we have to market another way. Those who “adapted” the fastest reduced their time to get to their “goals” of more referrals.
  2. Compensation tactics and new skills. No one I know who is a home health marketer or hospice liaison wants to “remote” market only, but the skills they developed last year through using our sales email library in the Roadmap to Referrals gave them an edge. And this year, it’s just part of our fabric of marketing. We can go farther faster!
  3. CLEAR GOALS! What is your goal? The number. The timeframe. Speak it into existence. Give your goals LIFE! Mom is VERY clear about her goal. Upstairs in her room and using her fantastic bathroom. Because she is so clear – she will get there! And you will achieve your goals too when you are crystal clear on what success looks like for you!

 

Marketing for Home Health, Home Care, and Hospice is a journey. We are here at HCS to help you with a roadmap. Much like Mom’s OT and PT have a clinical pathway for her treatment plan, so can you. So if you are looking for a clear path to success, we have got your back – Roadmap to Referrals is your answer!

 

Jump on Mikes’s calendar, and he can show you the “on-ramp” to success!

Continuing adaptation is the key this year!

We would be honored to serve you – connect with Mike now!

 

Together we grow!

Remember, persistence pays off!

Melanie

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Do You Want To Know What Some Owners Have Confessed To Me About Their Sales Representatives?

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

Today I took a call from an owner who started out with this statement, “I’m at the end of my wits with my sales team.”

Yesterday the owner said something like, “I can’t help my sales representative get any further.”

Over the last month, I received several calls from owners who stated:

    • “We never got our referrals back to Pre-Covid levels”

    • “I can’t help my team”

    • “I’m all out of ideas”

    • “I don’t have the time or energy to manage a sales team”

So many agencies feel the same way!

It is hard work to grow an organization. It is hard work even when you have a home health company and they get referrals from their own rehab centers.

Over the last year with Covid, many seniors opted not to replace that knee or hip and as a result, their facility beds were empty.  No self-referrals.

So their CEO’s call me and say:

    • My sales managers aren’t producing referrals anymore.

    • My sales reps can’t get in to see referral sources so how can they get referrals.

My answer is always the same.

Let Home Care Sales Manage your sales reps!

 

If you have a large team (over 5 reps) or a small team (4 and under) we have a sales management program that solves all your problems.

You see, we learned what works by doing it. We are able to support your team with sales management or sales support with our weekly sales messaging.

If they need training we got that too! Want to use some of your Covid dollars? Hire us to come on-site and teach our Covid proof sales process that delivers results. My company is one of the fastest-growing providers in my entire state! Our clients are growing by leaps and bounds!

If you are feeling frustrated by your salespeople let us take care of you!  Let us coach/train and manage for you at the fraction of what it would cost you to hire a full-time sales manager!

Email Mike@homecaresales.com or reach out to me directly at Cheryl@homecaresales.com.  We are here for you!

 

Keep Helping, Keep Serving,

Cheryl Pelekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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Nursing and Sales: MAYBE THEY AREN’T SO DIFFERENT

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

 

I spent a few weeks exploring Europe with friends that I met at a conference back in 2005. It was a trip of a lifetime. Milan fashion week, Switzerland and its magnificent Alps, spectacular Lake Como, Austria, and Budapest with three days in Venice!

 

I posted a few of the photo’s so my kids could follow us on our magical trip. One of my clients sent me a text message asking me this question.

“IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE ON AN AMAZING TRIP.  HOW DID YOU TRANSITION FROM BEING A NURSE TO BEING A SALES EXPERT?”

 

 

I had my phone reply to all my texts that I was out of the country, so I had a lot of time to think about my answer. I wanted to share what I came to realize.

What is Nursing?

For me, nursing is working with a deep passion for helping others.

What is Sales?

For me, sales is working with a deep passion for helping others.

Purpose of Nursing

21st Century nursing is the glue that holds a patient’s health care journey together. Across the entire patient experience, and wherever there is someone in need of care, nurses work tirelessly to identify and protect the needs of the individual.

My Purpose for Sales

21st Century selling in the post-acute environment is the glue that holds a patient’s health care journey together. Across the entire patient experience, and wherever there is someone in need of care, sales reps work tirelessly to identify and protect the needs of the individual.

Nurses Are…..

Prepared with knowledge

Sales Reps are too!

What causes people to act or change?

Nursing taught me that only two things every drive change in a person’s habits: pain or fear!

Learning that allowed me to apply that principle and use it when out selling. Tap into a prospecting account’s fear or pain, bring them the solution, heal them, and get their business!

Nursing taught me to be PERSUASIVE!

Sales work requires me to be persuasive!

Nursing taught me to be relentless. I will never forget my first time doing chest compressions on a young man in his 50’s (now that I’m in my 50’s, they are young) and the doctor saying, “Okay, let’s call time of death.” My response was just a few more minutes, and the patient made it.

Now I tell my reps, be RELENTLESS and complete weekly sales calls for 8-12 weeks, and you may win the battle.  Sales reps keep gaining new accounts and growing the number of referrals weekly.

So maybe nursing has made me a better sales leader.

Maybe learning how to care for a patient has evolved me into a nurse who can sell.

Or perhaps Sales People are just hero’s too! I’m so grateful to know so many who are!  Thanks for the text!

 

Keep Helping, Keep Serving,

Cheryl Pelekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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OMG FINALLY – Mom is home AND has Home Health

Good news 21 days later, Mom is home, AND she has a Home Health Nurse, PT, and OT!

 

Yeah! Persistence pays off!

 

When I last left you, Mom was back in the hospital; her platelet count was rising, and we were in a little bit of a panic.

 

Her platelets were over 2 million, and we were a little nervous.

 

More pheresis, more medication, and one super scary A fib incident where her heart rate was over 165 laying in bed.

Mom was on the “ortho” floor. Why?

 

Because that is where a free bed was in the pandemic and you take what you can get! Her nurse Sara was super! She was not cardiac or from hematology, but she was knowledgeable, had an excellent bedside manner, and knew that she needed to get back up when the monitors went a little wacky with my Mom’s A-Fib.

 

So she called the critical care team.

 

According to my Mom, the critical care team came flying in to get her condition under control while Sara waved at my Mom and gave her the thumbs-up sign through the window. My Mom reported she thought she would meet God and come back to tell us about it, and Sara was an angel encouraging her to “stay with her.”

 

The care team got my Mom’s cardiac condition under control in about an hour. And then my Mom texted me and said, “Well, I guess it was not my time. I am still here!”

 

 

That was a heck of a text message. I am grateful she was in the hospital, and she was able to be cared for by the nurses and doctors so quickly.

 

This time Sara, my Mom’s nurse, identified early that my Mom needed PT and OT. She requested PT and OT bedside. After 4 Pheresis later and medication adjustments, Mom was ready to D/C!

 

And without prompting – the hospital Ordered Home Health!

 

(Of Course, it helped that Interim of Western PA knew precisely where my Mom was and was following up. As I had emailed them to tell them not to come out to assess as my Mom had gone back into the hospital before they could even get out there!)

 

Great news! And now I get to tell you how professional and kind the nurses and therapists were for my Mom!

 

With my Mom’s platelets being dramatically reduced to about 550k, she is much more functional. However, she is weak and still a fall risk. She has a new diagnosis of Afib and new medication. My brother and I will take turns taking her to her appointments, but she is looking ‘more like her old self” than I have seen her in a long time.

 

The nurses are helping her understand her disease process and educating her on “what pill to take when.”

 

The therapists are helping her get stronger and increase her endurance. They are also helping her understand the limitations and compensation techniques to be independent in the home. In addition, we have activated a telemonitoring device, Pro-Health, from ECG to be safe, and I can monitor her vital signs from afar.

 

As one of our favorite coaches, Michelle, reminds us, “It takes a team”!

 

I am grateful to everyone on my Mom’s care team for helping us get her back to her home.

 

Her patient-centered goal is to get “back to dancing.” – Hopefully, soon, I will be writing a blog about how Mom is dancing again!

 

Marketing lessons learned from Moms readmission:

 

  • Persistence pays off! Man, did I fight for my Mom to have Home Health. It boggles my mind how much effort I had to put forth to get mom home health. Patient advocacy is what we do every day.

 

This was a HUGE reminder that our referral sources are doing the best they can – in unusual conditions during this pandemic. They are tired. We are not top of mind which is why you have to CONSISTENTLY be out there sharing your message of Home Care, Home Health, and Hospice!

 

  • Get help when you need it! Sara (bless her heart) was an ortho nurse. However, due to the hospital being full, she had my Mom – a cardiac / hematology patient. When she didn’t know what to do, she called in the critical care team!

 

As a home care marketer, home health liaison, or hospice representative, there are PLENTY of times when you don’t know how to approach an account or get past the gatekeeper. Think of us as your Critical Care Team!

 

  • We got your back here at HCS!

 

Remember, persistence pays off!

Melanie

 

P.S. Do you need Home Care Sales as your Critical Care Team? We got you covered. Click Here to -> Set up a time with Mike for a free consultation and discover how you can go from challenged to champion in just 90 days!

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