HHT #156 - It's Time to Prune the Roses

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It's Time to Prune the Roses

Spring is a great time to prune away the dead wood, and prepare your agency for growth!

March 18, 2009

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In this issue...

-- It's Time to Prune the Roses

-- Run for the Roses in Home Health Care Sales

-- Private Duty Business Builders Strategy Retreat

-- Recent Postings to our Home Health Care Leadership Minute BLOG

-- About the Author

-- Permission to Reproduce

Welcome,

... to Home Health Care Today, the leading electronic newsletter for home health care in America. This special report for CEOs and senior executives of America's leading home health care companies is published every other Wednesday by Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company for our clients, friends, and advocates who want to grow their home health businesses.

For ideas to grow your Private Duty Home Care business, subscribe to Private Duty Today, the bi-weekly newsletter for non-medical home care CEOs. Your complimentary subscription is available at www.privatedutytoday.com.


It's Time to Prune the Roses

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Rose BushLast Saturday afternoon in Louisville was spectacular. After a colder and snowier winter than usual, that first warm sunny day in March was so delightful. I immediately got into my gardening clothes and dug out my pruning shears. I cut back all of our rose bushes to about 18 inches high, and hauled away the dead wood.

This morning when I went out to watch the sun come up, I noticed that the rose bushes are beginning to show the first signs of new growth as they come back to life.

If you have heard my keynote speech, Home Health Care 2020: The Six Pillars of the Agency Of The Future, you know that Elizabeth and I are avid rose gardeners. We love our rose garden, and I love being out there early on those warm spring mornings hauling mulch, trimming bushes, turning the soil, and adding fertilizer. In the speech, I discuss the growth pillar, and use the metaphor of growing roses to explain why growth of a home health agency is important.

Growth is important, because every healthy organism goes through periods of growth, dormancy, and more growth. If a plant, animal, person, or home health agency stops growing, then it is dying.

Several weeks ago, I was presenting this program in Texas. After the opening general session, a middle aged woman came up to me. She was smiling a big joyous smile and she said, "Thank You. Now I understand why our agency needs to grow. I never understood it quite that way before. I couldn't figure out why we couldn't just stay the same size, and be out there taking care of our patients."

For Healthy Growth, Prune the Dead Branches

Every gardener knows that from time to time you need to prune your bushes and get rid of the dead wood. That allows the plant to focus on growing new, healthy stems that reach for the sun and bring on bright, beautiful flowers.

The same thing is true of your home health agency. From time to time, we need to look inside to examine the branches. We need to find the dead wood, carefully snip it off, and discard it. What dead wood do you have in your agency?

Old Dead Policies

Many agencies are still operating with old, dead policies that no longer apply. But they keep doing the same thing because that's what the policy manual says.

Old Dead Procedures

Sometimes, the processes we use to operate our agency on a daily basis become dead wood. They no longer work the way they were designed, and they become inefficient. Then they slow the growth of the rest of the agency.

Old Dead Attitudes

Attitudes are "Habits of Thought." In many agencies, we find old dead attitudes that are left over from days gone by. Often, to breath new life into the agency, we need to prune away those old habits of thought.

Sometimes People are Dead Wood

I've never been an advocate of using a hatchet to solve the problems of a struggling home health agency. Even when I was the CEO of a large agency during the Interim Payment System in 1999, I worked hard to keep good people. However, there are times when the best thing you can do for the agency, and the people in the agency, is to get out your pruning shears and snip away a few branches that are inhibiting the health of the rest of the organization.

What pruning do you need to do? Is now the time to step back and examine the various branches of your agency? Do you need to get out your pruning shears and cut away some dead wood?

Prune carefully and deliberately, and you'll come away with healthy new growth as spring time arrives. What a blessing that will be for the future of your agency.


Run for the Roses in Home Health Care Sales

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Derby WinnerWatching the winning horse and rider stand in the winner's circle at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May with the garland of roses is a thrilling experience. It's always great to be around the winner.

We have a rule in our company at Leading Home Care. We only work with the winners.

That's because the losers don't call. The people who work with us to grow their agencies and get ready for the future are the winners. They are already doing a lot of things right. But they realize they can always learn and improve.

The home health agencies, hospices, and private duty home care companies who send their sales professionals to the Certified Home Care Sales ProfessionalTM workshop are winners. They are already doing a lot of things right. They are bringing in new referrals that turn into admissions.

Yet they realize they can be better by providing the best sales training in the industry for their home care sales professionals.

The single best method to increase referrals that turn into admissions is through direct sales calls on hospital discharge planners and physicians. Having an effective sales team in place is critical to your success in this highly competitive home health marketplace.

If you have some good people on board in your sales team and you want them to be winners too, you'll want to send them to Louisville, KY next month for our Certified Home Care Sales ProfessionalTM workshop. They will come together with a hundred or so other sales winners, and our faculty members Dr. Tray Dunaway, Michael Giudicissi, and myself to explore the seven step home care sales process. They'll get practical, hands-on insights on how to get past the gatekeepers and have meaningful dialog with physicians and other key referral sources.

The 2009 Certified Home Care Sales ProfessionalTM workshop will be held in Louisville, Kentucky on April 1, 2, and 3, 2009 at the luxurious Brown Hotel. If you, or someone in your agency, wants to participate in the most in-depth sales training program in the home health care industry, you will want to be in Louisville in April.

Participants who complete this 15-hour training program will be on their way to earning the Certified Home Care Sales ProfessionalTM designation. This is the only earned designation for sales professionals in the home health care industry.

Learn more about the 2009 CHCSP workshop in Louisville!


Private Duty Business Builders Strategy Retreat

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Many of you who are executives in Medicare Certified Home Health agencies also have a private duty home care business. If you're like most home health agencies, you struggle with making your private duty business profitable.

If you and your private duty director would like to come together with other successful private duty companies for a one-day executive strategy retreat, here's an exciting opportunity.

Join me in Columbia, Maryland - right near BWI airport - for a one day focused strategy session designed to help you develop a business growth plan for your company. We'll look at the 27 elements of a successful private duty business, and give you an opportunity to focus on those elements that are most important for you.

We'll share with you the best practices and proven techniques to grow your private pay business. We'll show you how to recruit and select the caregivers you need to take on more clients. And we will give you specific tips to increase the profitability of your business.

Join the folks from the Maryland National Capital Home Care Association on June 3, 2009 for the Private Duty Business Builders Strategy Retreat. See you there!

Register today!


Recent Postings to our Home Health Care Leadership Minute BLOG

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Visit our BLOG, Home Health Care Leadership Minute for Stephen Tweed's observations on the latest happenings in home health care around the world. The latest BLOG postings include:

  • Hospitals losing money. What will be the impact on Home Health Care?
  • Ohio Home Health Agency Issues Press Release about Muffins for Doctors
  • Obama Budget Proposal Cuts Money from Home Health Care
  • Do Female Executives Lack Vision?
  • Home Health Nurse Writes Editor about Information Technology
  • Gentiva Refocuses on Home Health Care for the Elderly
  • Amedisys reports growth in Home Health Earnings
  • Celebrating 100 Years of Home Health Care

Visit Stephen Tweed's Home Health Care Leadership Minute


About the Author

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Stephen Tweed, CSP, is Chairman and CEO of Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company. For over 25 years he has been a recognized leader in strategy and leadership development for home health care companies and associations. He is the author or co-author of seven books, five of which were written specifically for the home care industry. He has served on the boards of directors of three not-for-profit home care agencies, and has served as interim President & CEO of a $25 million home care company.

Stephen is a past-President of the National Speakers Association, a 3500 member international society of experts who speak professionally. He is also the father of a 38 year-old son who is physically disabled and uses the services of home care on a daily basis.

Meet the entire Leading Home Care Team


Permission to Reproduce

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Permission is granted to healthcare publications, associations and companies to reproduce this article in your publication, or to distribute copies to your leaders, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Home Health Care Today. Copyright 2009 Stephen C. Tweed. To receive a FREE subscription to this newsletter, log on to www.leadinghomecare.com."



Contact Leading Home Care

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phone: 1-866-209-5101

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