Kenyon Connects

The holiday season is a special time of year. It is an opportunity to gather with friends, family, and colleagues. Regardless of our faith or beliefs, the holiday season is often filled to the brim with an array of festivities that reflect precious memories. While most of us barely have time to catch our breath between parties and concerts, gift exchanges and joyful gatherings, for the elderly, the holidays are often a time to focus on what they have lost.

For many, that loss is defined by physical disabilities that make it difficult for them to participate in customs and celebrations that were once very much part of their lives. For others, the holidays are poignant reminders of the loss of a spouse or a friend.

Yeas ago I realized how important this time of year was and what it meant to my clients who found it harder and harder to take part in the holiday season. In response, I created a Holiday Helper program that allowed my clients to maintain many of their favorite traditions while creating a much needed resource for local college students.

At the start of the holiday season, I began recruiting home care ‘helpers’ from the local universities and colleges. Logic said that college students might be looking for part-time work to earn a little extra money during their break. It turned out my instincts were correct, and almost immediately my office was flooded with responses. All I had to do was match each student to one of my elderly clients.

Here’s how it worked. The home care services provided under the Holiday Helper program varied and depended on the client, as well as their religion or customs. Their personal Holiday Helper provided gift shopping, holiday cooking, decorating the home or apartment, and transporting their client to any special productions or services that were part of their holiday tradition. I charged my clients a fee and paid their personal Holiday Helper a respectful part-time wage.

When I began the program, I thought it would be a good service for my home health clients. What I discovered after the fact was the students were served as well. Universally, they reported they did things they had never done before. For some it was the first time they had made holiday cookies or treats. For others it was the first time they had attended the Messiah or a live production of the Nutcracker or a Christmas Carol. While most had helped their own families with holiday preparations, working as a Holiday Helper allowed them to learn about another family’s traditions. The primary benefit, of course, was the deep satisfaction of helping others.

For the elders, it was an opportunity to be with “the young ones” again. Rather than being isolated during the holiday season, they were surrounded by youthful energy and enthusiasm. Most importantly, they had someone to share the meaning of the season with and to pass on traditions that were important to them. It also refocused their thinking towards positive things in their lives rather than what they had lost.

I encourage every home health agency to instigate a Holiday Helper program. Even though it is a bit late in the year, there is still time to pull one together. While the program generates moderate seasonal revenue, the goodwill garnered from the program far surpasses any fiscal gain. It is the essence of a good deed and the benefits to all can be seen in the happy faces of your clients and the young students. And frankly, from the warm fuzzy feeling you’ll experience knowing that you’ve made a difference in someone’s life and made his or her holiday happy, joyous, and bright

For additional holiday treats see the links below.

KHCC Holiday Traditions: A Kenyon Family Feast

KHCC Holiday Traditions: Dolores Nagel’s Spritz Cookies

KHCC Holiday Traditions: Miriam’s Mandelbrot Biscotti

It is with great pleasure that I introduce Pat Drea, a dear colleague and friend, who has agreed to share some of her great wisdom with all of us. Pat, Chief Operating Officer for Visiting Angels, a leading national private duty company with 430 offices, is a popular featured speaker at national and state private duty events.  Like all leaders in this industry, Pat has her finger in the wind and sees the changes coming and is sharing some of her tips for not only survival but for thriving and growing your home care business.  Enjoy!

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It’s no secret that our economy has changed in crucial, fundamental ways that are redefining what it means to be successful in private duty home care. Competition has increased in some markets as people displaced from other industries see private duty home care as an attractive business opportunity. Consumers are less likely to purchase high-hour services, and nervously seek cheaper, untrained, unsupervised alternatives to what professional private duty home care companies provide. Marketing has emerged as a full time role for Private Duty home care companies that wish to become known as preferred providers with a recognizable brand. Overhead has increased in the form of regulation and oversight, increased expectations of consumer families, due diligence in hiring and orientation, and the requirements for maximum efficiency. Growing your Private Duty home care business, demands that you take several steps to adapt to the new tough economy.

New Rules for the New Economy

1. Make “disciplined reinvention” your mantra. In this new world where consumers’ buying habits, expectations, access to information, needs and resources are changing, there is no substitute for an attitude that says, “What can I do better today than I did yesterday?” Keep your awareness on the opportunities and possibilities that lay in front of you – untapped private duty referral sources, adding growth services, satisfying prime referral sources so they send you more referrals. Celebrate and share your victories. Be determined to create a private duty home care business that will leave a lasting legacy.
2. Become experts at lead conversion. Barbara Akst’s article last week, It Starts With Hello, provided the best practices to achieve a high lead conversion. We invest a great deal in time and money to create leads for the lead funnel. Now is the time to challenge your team to achieve higher conversion rates which translate into more care for those consumers who need your services. The decision about home care is a complex one for families and their loved ones. Let us also achieve a high level of proficiency at assisting our consumers to navigate through the decision making process making it easy for them to say “yes” to the private duty home care services that their loved one really needs.
3. Establish marketing and networking as core functions of your office operations. Gone are the days when a home care agency could achieve dramatic growth by passing out brochures and placing newspaper ads. Internet media, competition, vanishing print media, and the wide variety of senior living and support options create an environment where we must deftly customize our messages to referral sources. The new marketing concept cultivates relationships which exchange high valued resources. We find out what problems they face and become part of the solution. We work to make their lives easier. The referral becomes secondary to a deep connection that has meaning and value to both parties. It’s about the relationship, smartie!
4. Refine your private duty home care operations for maximum efficiency. We have achieved great efficiencies in our scheduling of caregivers with scheduling software and telephony. Technological advances have made our operations more efficient: enhanced communications through the use of smart phones, voice mail blasts, customer friendly bill-pay approaches, safety and security technology for the care recipient when they are alone. To enjoy some of the latest technological advances for older people view the Para Robotic Seal and listen to NPDA’s Consumers conference calls, “Ready Talk,” by going to the Consumer tab at the NPDA site: www.privatedutyhomecare.org. Use some of the sophisticated and affordable options to compare your dashboard results to national benchmarking private duty data and motivate your staff and your caregivers to be at the cutting edge of extraordinary performance measures. Consider comparing your results to those of the Home Care Pulse 2011 Survey or Stephen Tweed’s Benchmarking Study.

So what if it’s a new world. You wouldn’t be in the private duty home care business if you didn’t love a challenge.

Please attend Pat Drea’s presentation “New Rules for the New Economy” at the PDHCA conference at the Bellagio, Las Vegas, January 23 – 25, 2012. Website: www.nahc.org/meetings/PD/12/

Frequently we see agencies that have a good basic financial system such as QuickBooks or something similar that helps keep their financial data in a manageable format, but most do not go beyond that basic information. You will know your gross income, your net cost of doing business, and hopefully your net income. However there is a lot more information that you will need to really stay on top of your home care business on a weekly basis.

First of all you need to know what your cost of sales is for your home care agency. To accomplish this you will need to know the cost of all advertising, cost of your sales staff, the number of leads from advertising, the number of leads from your sales staff, and the number of leads or referrals from other referral sources. This information will allow you to analyze the data in a way that gives you the information needed to determine where your referrals are coming from, the cost of each of the referral streams, and finally the cost per lead generated. Keeping a good handle on your home care cost of sales is one of the biggest challenges in the home care industry and one that is frequently not quantified in a way that allows the home care owner/manager to really see where their marketing and sales dollars are spent and then be able to determine if that is the best way to spend those dollars.

Second you need to be able to track the number of home care inquiries/referrals and the percent of conversion. You need to target a conversion rate of between 70% and 80%. Additional to that data, on a weekly basis you need to know the number of active home care clients, the number of home care clients that discontinued services, and the net gain or loss of clients for the week. In addition, and probably more important for the bottom line is the number of hours lost and gained for the week and the value of each. It is possible to have gained 5 new clients and still have lost financially. If you experienced one lost client that was a 24/7 case and gained the 5 new clients that totalled hours less that the hours generated by the one lost case, the net to the home care agency is a loss, therefore you need to track both numbers.

Next you need to track your direct costs (caregiver costs). Be sure to include not only their pay and associated taxes, but their mileage and any supplies that you provide on a regular basis like their gloves. In addition to the direct costs, you need to tract recruitment and retention data; total number of caregivers paid for the week, number of caregivers hired, number of caregivers terminated, total number of caregivers in the pool, and the total number that are active. Some home care agencies also track the cost of recruitment and retention activities. By tracking all of this data, the home care management team will have a better idea of what their recruitment and retention activities are really costing the agency and again the ability to make decisions about where the home care agency should be spending their time and money. The final data collected in this section is the ratio of active caregivers to active clients. A good rule of thumb is to have at least 30% more caregiver time available than what your current client case load requires. That way you will always have caregiver time available to take on new clients without making them wait.

You must have good home care financial analytic systems that tell you where your business is and assists in projecting future growth. There must be basic systems in place that help you or your staff determine pricing, pay to employees, gross and net margins by line of business, cost of sales, conversion rates of inquiries, compensation packages for sales and marketing staff, in other words, anything and everything that effects the financial health of your agency. Agencies frequently develop a dashboard to assist with this element of managing your business.

If you feel you could use some assistance with creating financial systems or your dashboard for your home health agency call us at 206-721-5091 or contact us. We are here to help.

Most people acknowledge the importance of their Home Care Human Resources (HR), but fail to invest the time and the money needed to really support the department. For an agency to become successful, human resource must become a priority. Whom you hire becomes you to your customer.

To assure you are hiring and retaining the very best, here are several steps you can take:

1. Develop a profile that accurately portrays the type and characteristics of the caregiver you want to represent your home care agency. For instance, if you decide to specialize in dementia services, the characteristics of the caregiver are going to look different than if you are specializing in rehab services. For the dementia patient/client, you want a caregiver who is patient and calm; someone who can tolerate the same question over and over and softly redirect the client/patient when they become agitated. For rehab services, the caregiver needs to be more directive, encouraging, and supportive of the client/patients’ progress in their behaviors and words. So your profiles are going to be very different depending on the services you are offering. Once you have developed that profile, only hire to the profile. Do not make any exceptions!

2. Develop ads to elicit the right candidates for employment. Depending on where the business is located, there are several options for ad placement. If you are hiring home care aides, Craig’s list and Monster.com have been successful recruitment sites for some; others find their local papers give them the best results. Another successful resource for ad placement is a career magazine such as Today’s Careers, if it’s published for your location. If you are hiring professional staff, such as LPN’s or RN’s, there are several sites on line that specialize in health care professionals. Additionally you may be able to recruit you’re your local community college. Your local newspaper can also be a resource for ad placement for professional staff.

3. Interview for the behavioral traits and knowledge you desire. If you’ve run an agency or been in business for a while, you know that meeting the employees profile is just the first step. Of equal importance are the behavioral traits that the potential employee embodies. These are sometimes very hard to elicit in the interviews. We highly recommend using Steven Tweed’s Caregiver Quality Assurance test. You can find information at CaregiverQuality.com. The test is validated and assures accuracy of findings. Additionally, you will need to determine the knowledge base of the potential employee. There are several tests on the market place that can assist you. At Kenyon HomeCare Consulting, we have developed a 50 question test available to our clients to assist with determining the basic understanding of diseases and fundamentals of care. Additionally, the test includes a content analysis so you can clearly see what the caregiver understands and what they do not. The candidate must pass by 80% to be considered eligible to continue in the hiring process. This test and answer sheets can be obtained by contacting Kenyon HomeCare Consulting. By using the resources available, and having a well-developed two person interview process, you can be assured you are getting the best caregivers to meet the needs of your specific home care client/patient caseload.

4. Get your new employees off to a strong start with a thorough orientation program. Your orientation program is the first in an on-going series of continuing education to introduce your new employees to your unique home care client base. Because of the variances between agencies, the orientation program for one agency will look very different from another that offers different services. In addition to any service specialty run by your home care agency, the orientation must also include a review of both the federal and state rules (if you are licensed) governing your home care agency, your customer service expectations of your new employees, and the procedures for payroll, documentation, client confidentiality, emergency care, the agency disaster plan, and your requirement for continuing education. Your orientation should fit the specifics of your home care agency and relay requirements and education your new employees will need to successfully perform their duties. A yearly calendar of in-service training specific to the care needs of your clients is tremendously beneficial in helping achieve your care giving goals.

5. Establish and maintain proper employee files. A system to maintain up to date required documentation in each personnel file is an absolute must. All time-sensitive documents that expire, such as professional and drivers licenses, CPR certification (if you require it), evidence of current automobile insurance, and proof of on-going in-service training must be monitored and obtained to keep employee files current. Failure to maintain employee files can have consequences such as citations by licensing bodies if your agency is licensed, which can decrease the value of the agency.

The strength of the Human Resources of your agency can add value or decrease your agency’s value. Build it right from the beginning and maintain the investment in the future. If you are struggling on how to build the HR component of your business and need consultation assistance, contact Ginny Kenyon at Kenyon HomeCare Consulting.