Growing Your Home Care Practice Amid Higher Acuity Discharges

Home care agencies are accepting more complex care patients. These patients come from hospitals and are higher-acuity cases. Agencies are also seeing more patients with shorter stays at rehab facilties. To properly serve this growing population, home care administrators need to sufficiently train their caregivers, develop processes for matching clients with available payor options, and develop better relationships with these referral sources.

Training Caregivers to Serve High-Acuity Patients

• Forecast the needs of the agency's potential patient population and develop training modules

• Develop specialized caring modules for different patient populations (e.g., dementia patients coming from a home environment, frail patients recently released from rehab centers)

Matching Acuity Clients with Available Payor Options

• Educate staff on how to advise patients on insurance options

• Modify your intact process to include a menu of payment options and insurance plans

• Assist family members in understanding their insurance options

Improving Relationships with High-Acuity Referral Sources

• Meet the rehab staff and share best practices techniques

• Share non-HIPAA information with hospital staff releasing high-acuity patients

• Set up coordination planning meetings to better handle patient transfers

• Provide value to the referral source by sharing data and showing positive outcomes

• Demonstrate transparency, responsiveness, and the ability for the agency to retain quality, well-trained caregivers

You can significantly grow your home care practice in this niche. Your investment in the areas mentioned above will give your agency a sustainable, competitive advantage in the market.