This post shows how a strategic planning process can be an excellent tool to building a strong team and help develop a culture of excellence and growth. I’m sitting in the Delta lounge at the Atlanta airport talking with several colleagues about the value of strategic planning. Whether your planning process is an afternoon event, a meeting on market planning or a more rigorous process with your board, it is all good. We all agreed to that.
Learn in this post how to break into the C-Suite at your local hospital!!! It is much easier than you think!!
I was taking to a colleague in Youngstown, Ohio who owns a hospice and who was having trouble getting an audience with the C-Suite Executives in his local hospital. He tried many times with no success. I did work with Mark (my friend) to take the GIP Contract he had with the hospital and build it into a quality well run GIP Cluster Bed Program. There is a BIG difference between a GIP Contact and a GIP Cluster Bed Program. With the GIP Cluster Bed Program in place, we crafted out a very clear and strong value proposition statement around 5 key points on our GIP Program would bring value to the hospital. We wrote a letter to the CEO and within two weeks we had a meeting with the CEO, CFO, CMO and CNO.
The BIGGEST mistake most people make when working a hospital for referrals is that they neglect developing relationships with key influencers.
There are some 25 other customers besides the obvious ones who can help develop your hospital referrals! Everyone works “the middle”, those Case Managers, Discharge Planners and Social Workers. Yes, these professionals are important and every hospice, home care and other health care salesperson call upon them!! Expand your circle on influence
The secret to building lasting relationships and a stream of referrals is to understand what the value proposition is for the hospital professionals listed below. A hospital is a mini city and knowing how these people can influence your hospice or home care business is key!!
Good evening to all.
As I sit at my cigar club, going through my emails, the questions I am receiving revolve around whether to make or buy the elements to a post-acute care continuum.
The emails ask “Do I want to totally own and operate my post-acute care continuum or can I buy/lease some or all of it??”
There truly isn’t one correct answer.
I am responding to these emails by asking “what is your true objective for your Post-Acute Care Continuum??”
This Pillar is challenging to build as hospice companies have traditionally done a poor job of understanding how to go about obtaining “traction” in this referral channel. Further, hospice sales staff don’t feel comfortable calling upon physicians and their offices.
Physicians, as we all know, are hard to get to. There are ways to accomplish this. There is value in developing key relationships with the physician office referral nurse and/or office manager.
Knowing how to target key physicians is critical; an obvious statement!! You can buy Medicare physician utilization data that shows the number of hospice referrals a physician makes and to whom the referral goes. This data will give you great focus on where to place your efforts.
Preparing Your Organization for Hospice Payment Reform
At last week’s National Association for Home Care meeting in Chicago, it became apparent that Medicap and CMS are finally on the same page (or at least close) to reform of the hospice payment system.
The reformed payment system comes close the U shaped payment system under consideration the past several years. This payment system focused on paying more at the early and late portion of a patient stay and less for the “bottom” part of the U. Most higher Length of Stay patients have long an elongated shape.
Expert business services for health care organizations looking to improve service delivery, grow market share and enhance profitability.
Serving more hospice eligible patients and growing your average daily census per senior living community is an important Pillar of Growth for most organizations. Being able to serve more patients in Senior Living Communities will steadily increase your length of stay. To be successful in doing this, hospices most truly understand the Value Proposition for Assisted Living, Independent Living and Skilled facilities.
Everyone works the “middle” in the hospital referral chain. Those Case Managers, Discharge Planners and Social Workers that get bombarded daily by hospice, home care and LTACH sale people. There are however many other customers in the hospital that need to be cultivated if you wish to develop a productive relationship with an acute care organization. I have a list of over 25 different customers in a hospital and the related value propositions I would be more than happy to share. Just drop me a line.
