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Private Duty Today
Welcome to Private Duty Today,
the bi-weekly electronic newsletter for Private Duty Home Care Leaders
from Leading Home Care ...a Tweed Jeffries company.
I'm Jason Tweed, Director of Business Development for
Leading Home Care, and Editor of Private
Duty Today.
Private Duty Today is published every
other Wednesday, and currently goes to over 7000 subscribers.
Private Duty Today is
a permission-based newsletter.
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A debate among nonmedical home care salespeople has been
brewing for years. Some find success marketing to physicians and
their staff, while others believe that marketing in the medical
community is a waste of time and resources. Who is correct?
In fact, what we know is that about 50% of agencies receive a
significant number of referrals from physicians and hospital staff,
while the others received virtually no referrals.
The commonality we've discovered is that many of the agencies receiving
these referrals for nonmedical home care are organizations that are
Medicare certified and deliver home health care as well. For
these companies nonmedical home care is part of a continuum.
Additionally, our home health clients have found that most of
their private duty referrals come from a handful of their physicians
who understand the value of private pay home care.
On the one hand I strongly encourage home health agencies to reach
beyond their comfort zone of the medical establishment and concentrate
their efforts on networking and community outreach to grow their
private pay business, but on the other hand it's clear that physicians
can be a potentially valuable referral source.
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So, how do
you sell to physicians?
 I decided to go directly to the
source and called our colleague and good friend, Dr. M. Tray
Dunaway. Dr. Dunaway, a surgeon, will be one of the featured
speakers at the upcoming Certified Home Care Sales
ProfessionalTM conference coming to Louisville this
April. Beyond the fact that he is a dynamic speaker, I like
talking to Dr. Dunaway because he's a straight shooter. He
teaches salespeople how to get the attention of physicians, a heroic
feat at times.
"Put
yourself in the physicians' shoes." he says.
Physicians are an altruistic bunch, generally speaking. You don't
become a physician for the cash, because there are easier ways to make
a living. You become a physician because you genuinely want to
help people.
But now, Dr. Dunaway tells me, physicians' time is fragmented.
They are focused on their patients, rapidly changing medicine, managing
their practice, and trying to squeeze in time for family and
personal commitments. When trying to educate physicians on the
use and value of nonmedical home care, you have to make it clear in a
matter of seconds that what you have to say is worthy of their most
valuable commodity, time.
I know from personal experience the role that nonmedical home care
plays in my life. There's no question that my health depends on
my ability to manage my activities of daily living. So why is it
hard to explain that role to physicians?
"Physicians
have trouble connecting the dots," says Dr. Dunaway, "from your services, to
their patients' needs and to their medical practice."
To capture their attention you have to draw direct correlation from
services you offer to their bottom line. This is far more
difficult for nonmedical home care than it is for certified home
health.
Dr. Dunaway advises us to "Identify
three very specific ways you can help their patients, then clearly
demonstrate how this can affect their business."
I paraphrased, "So we need to address patient needs and the needs
of the physician?"
His response, "Well,
yes, but mostly the needs of the physician." He
said in a chuckling, but frank tone.
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The impact
of Pay-for-Performance
One topic on the forefront of physicians'
minds is the trend of pay-for-performance in health care.
Today Medicare allows hospitals and other healthcare providers to earn
bonus dollars for meeting quality benchmarks. While this has
little direct impact on physicians in private practice, this trend
indicates that it's a matter of time before physicians are held to
similar standards. Physicians are recognizing the need to look at
the broader scope of overall health care as they treat a specific
diagnosis.
For the first time, non-medical homecare, which primarily affects
quality of life and comfort, may be able to demonstrate value where it
matters most, in the wallets of physicians whom refer to them. A
common home health sales strategy is to teach physicians how to benefit
financially from referring to home care by billing Medicare for the
paperwork and reporting required.
Private pay home care companies could demonstrate a clear cause and
effect relationship between recommending private pay home care and
improving the physician's practice.
You have the unique opportunity currently to invite physicians to try
your services with a small sampling of their patients and see the effect
on overall wellness. If you can demonstrate improvement in
medical outcomes of these patients there's a much stronger chance that
you'll be able to persuade the physician that many clients should have
access to this type of care, because their outcomes will justify the
time they spend.
While outcomes will be increasingly important in every specialty, your
most lucrative relationships will probably be those specialties that
focus more on overall health; family practice, internal medicine and
gerontology.
Of critical importance to the physician is that they receive something
of value for their time, and frankly, the best benchmark available is
dollars in their pocket. Tell physicians that overall wellness
can lead to financial benefits, and you will capture their
attention. Connect the dots between what you do and what they
value.
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Certified
Home Care Sales Professional Conference
Want to learn more from the man himself? Dr. M. Tray
Dunaway will be one of the featured presenters at the upcoming
conference being offered by Leading Home Care.
The Certified Home Care Sales
Professional conference is being hosted in our home city,
Louisville, Kentucky April 1-3. Whether you're ready for the
certification test, or just beginning the process, you'll want to hear
Dr. Dunaway, Stephen Tweed, and Michael Giudicissi demonstrate
techniques of the top salespeople in private duty and home health care.
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Caregiver Quality Assurance
Every company claims to have the best caregivers, but how
can you prove it objectively?
 Dozens of companies started using our caregiver
pre-employment assessment system, and not only has it improved the
overall quality and continuity of care, but it's a definitive manager
that can set you apart from your competition.
For this reason, we developed The Caregiver Quality Assurance logo that
can be used in conjunction with our Caregiver Selection System
to demonstrate that your company uses the system to screen applicants
and to improve caregiver-client matching.
If you'd like to learn more about the Caregiver Quality Assurance
program and the requirements to become a participant, you can call
Diane West at 1-866-209-5101.
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February poll results, and a
new question for March
I was underwhelmed by reader participation in our poll.
Hundreds of you clicked through to the blog, but only about a dozen
answered our February mini poll question. Well, I posted the
results for February and I am willing to give you another chance this
month.
Our March poll is about the economy. Could it be
having positive effects for private duty businesses? Let's find
out.
Stop by our Private Duty Today Blog to
take our brief, completely unscientific, poll about the economy.
Check it out and please leave your comments or questions.
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