By Ginny Kenyon | Published: September 2, 2010 – 8:25 pm
Imagine you’re driving someplace you’ve never been before. You don’t have a map or a GPS but you do have a sense of where you are going. Instinct tells you to turn right and then left and then right again, but you end up miles from where you wanted to be. Hours later, you arrive at your destination exhausted, frustrated, and unable to enjoy your surroundings.
Running a Home Health or Private Pay agency without some kind of objective indicator to tell you how your business is really doing is a little like driving without a map. A professionally designed Dashboard (sometimes called a Scorecard) works just like a map and identifies clear signposts that tell you whether or not your agency is on the right track. A Dashboard helps you make informed decisions, implement course corrections, and gives you the information you need to keep your agency viable, on track, and financially healthy. (more…)
Filed under: Finances
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: September 1, 2010 – 4:58 pm
Starting in September 2010, a provision in the new healthcare legislation will make it possible for young adults to remain on or be added to their parent’s health insurance plans until they turn twenty-six. While this may not directly impact your Home Health and Private Pay clients, it is possible some of your clients may have grandchildren that could be covered by their parents’ insurance. Additionally, some of your staff may have young adult children that are impacted by this new law as well.
As a courtesy, I recommend you remind anyone involved with your agency about the new law. In a world where so many are uninsured, it is nice to be able to deliver some good news.
Filed under: Healthcare Reform
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: August 30, 2010 – 6:31 pm
Quality can be elusive. Definitions tend to vary from person to person, and often what is considered excellent by one is just a variable in perception by another. Yet we all know quality is a key ingredient to business success. Years of experience have taught me that even elusive concepts can be corralled into tangible results, and quality, particularly in Private Pay, actually has a lot to do with having expectations that can be delivered upon.
To build quality into your organization, you must have a clear idea of what your customer wants from you. The initial intake and assessment visit are critical to identifying your customer’s desires and needs. Failure to identify what they are looking for often leads to unmet expectations and an unhappy client or family. Whenever I’m brought into a Private Pay agency to help build their business, I always do a review of their intake practices. Often it’s just a matter of rewriting the questions so that they better reveal desires and outcomes. Once that is accomplished, the plan for implementation becomes much easier and has a higher chance of success. (more…)
Filed under: Education & Training, Ginny's Blog
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: August 23, 2010 – 5:50 pm
Hiring can be stressful, especially for a home health or home care agency. If only there was some magic potion or wand we could wave over a potential employee and turn them into a Prince or Princess Charming who would always be reliable, loyal to the agency, and adored by clients and their families.
Since there does not seem to be a magical solution to make this happen, many administrators I’ve talked to have begun using a profile tool to help eliminate glaring hiring mistakes. The profile is a compilation of all the attributes demonstrated by star employees who have successfully held a position in the past. For instance, one client developed a profile of the ‘best home care aide’ that included being a team player, reliable, dependable, responsive to requests, compassionate, able to listen, a critical thinker, a self starter, sought continuing education, and had a strong commitment to customer service. (more…)
Filed under: Ginny's Blog, Specialized Support
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: August 16, 2010 – 10:52 pm
In case you haven’t noticed, Private Pay agencies and franchises are opening up all over the county. This explosion, which has been going on over the last eight to ten years, is driven by two forces. On the one hand, new startups are run by individuals in the industry who truly see a need and want to make a difference in the lives of those they serve. On the other hand, an equal number of startups are opened by businesspeople that have never been in the healthcare field. These individuals see a financial opportunity and want to capitalize on the growing demographic of elders who will require the services of a private pay company. Whatever the reason for entering the private pay arena, if you are not committed to your business, you will probably have trouble succeeding. (more…)
Filed under: Agency Startups, Ginny's Blog
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: August 9, 2010 – 7:48 pm
Remember the days when the customer was always right? This bending over backwards to please a customer yielded mountains of good will for a company. Sadly, in the United States today, customer service has fallen off the radar of many good businesses and, sadder yet, customers don’t even expect good service anymore.
But that doesn’t make it right.
Great customer service is one of the basic rules of good business. Honestly, I’m a bit fussy about customer service, and my expectations are high. If a company doesn’t perform as it should or if an item isn’t delivered when promised, I always get on the phone and give them a chance to make it right. If a customer service department is nice and helpful, I’m a customer for life. On the other hand, they get one chance to fail and then I’m gone.
The same holds true for a home health agency. Think what happens when your homecare aide is late or doesn’t show up at all. Most customers are forgiving the first time but if this is repeated, they will probably go elsewhere. How many customers have you lost to poor customer service? Do you even know? (more…)
Filed under: Education & Training, Ginny's Blog
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: August 9, 2010 – 7:02 pm
Way back in the early days when the idea of home healthcare was just taking flight, staff orientation was about welcoming new employees and making them feel at home. Today, in a competitive marketplace and uncertain economy, orientation has grown from a ‘meet and greet’ into one of the most powerful tools you have to build a successful organization. (more…)
Filed under: Articles, Orientation
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: August 4, 2010 – 8:25 pm
When I started out as a home healthcare consultant, the last thing I ever expected is that I would become a culinary expert. Well, that is exactly what has happened, and for a very good reason. It turns out that in the new era of home health, one of the most common requests for services, besides personal care, is cooking. Unfortunately, cooking has also become one of the most common topics of complaint.
In my capacity as a home healthcare consultant, I’ve read hundreds of agency evaluations where clients go on and on about how fantastic their caregiver is and openly state how grateful they are to have such a loving and sweet person in their life. And then comes that final punch: she cannot cook to save her life.
Aides with adequate cooking skills are far and few between. Last year, when I was working with a client who runs a very successful home health agency, I heard what I believe is a very common complaint. A client’s daughter had asked the home care aide to broil her father a steak for dinner. Instead, the aide boiled the steak, which is how steaks are cooked in her native country. After some thought and discussion with the administrative staff, I decided it was time to develop a culinary arts program for the aides, particularly for those who live in, as they are almost always required to cook. (more…)
Filed under: Education & Training, Ginny's Blog, Specialized Support
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: July 27, 2010 – 6:55 pm
I often wake up in the wee hours of the morning wondering about change. As a professional consultant for the homecare industry, change – and all of its trappings – is often the focal point of my discussions with clients. On any given day, I help any number of agency owners and managers explore what change would mean for their organization.
Often we start by investigating what a Comprehensive Organizational Assessment would look like. Let me say up front that the fee for this type of assessment is worth more than its weight in gold. I don’t say this to drum up business for myself or other consultants. It’s just that change can be tricky, and if you don’t have a clear idea of where you are, it’s difficult to carve out a path to a better future. (more…)
Filed under: Ginny's Blog, Organizational Restructuring
By Ginny Kenyon | Published: July 14, 2010 – 8:51 pm
When I was a young mother with four children, I kept logs and target dates to make sure everyone got their immunizations on time. Frankly, I was often so busy, someone invariably slipped through the cracks. Once my children were grown and neatly packed off to college with the last of their shots in place, thoughts of immunization slipped right from my mind. So it came as a bit of a surprise, even to me, that according to a recent Medscape article, California is expecting one of the worst epidemics of Pertussis in years and is targeting, get this, not only un-immunized children, but their parents!
So how did we get from childhood immunizations to adult inoculations? Research is showing that parents and other adults are prime carriers of the disease and they are giving it to the children. While counter intuitive to everything I’ve ever said about kids being little “germ incubators,” it turns out adults often might be the worst offenders. (more…)
Filed under: Education & Training, Ginny's Blog
