Are you constantly searching for ways to market your agency to increase your hospice and home care referrals? Normal as the competition is tough and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought things to a halt.

Here are a few marketing ideas for your hospice or home health care business based on running an agency for over 24 years.

  • Adopt technology:

Adopting the right software (EHR) is of utter most importance as this is the tool that will help you manage your daily tasks. It will be difficult to switch to a different one if the chosen software is complicated and does not get the job done. You may want to hire experts in the matter to help you select the right software for your agency. For that, you can solicit the help of Tim Rowan by emailing him at tim@rowanresources.com . Based on his long experience in the field, Tim will listen to your needs and help you choose the right tool.

  • Develop a comprehensive marketing plan:

Nothing beats targeting and good planning. Come up with a home health marketing plan and budget for your hospice or home health agency (not to exceed 5% of your revenue). In it, you will select the marketing channels to use, the frequency of their use and the budget allocated for each channel.

  • Use social media:

Part of your marketing plan should include social media. The two best platforms to use are Facebook and Instagram as your target would be customers at large and not businesses. They are both free and can reach a big audience. Build your connections slowly and constantly to make sure that you are reaching the right audience AND attach nicely designed images to attract more attention and followers. You can always “boost” what you believe are great posts by allocating a small budget for them. Always test your messages and adjust as needed.

  • Hire home health and hospice marketers:

There is no way around it as you need people to target referral sources for home healthacre and bring in referrals for your agency. This is the most expensive part in marketing for home health. Make sure that you are hiring the right person. The candidate must always be well dressed, trustworthy, likeable, knowledgeable and energetic. To further boost his/her energy, make sure to allocate a commission for referrals they bring in.

  • Adopt a specialized CRM:

The best way to manage your sales people and your referral sources is by adopting the right CRM tool. There are plenty of CRMs out there (some totally free) but our advice is to select a CRM that is specialized in post-acute care and comes with referral data to help you target your marketing by reaching out to referral sources that already refer patients to home care, home health and hospice. This will efficiently help you increase your referrals.

  • More to come:

What we discussed above represents part of what you need to do in order to optimize your efforts to generate home health referrals. Stay tuned for more articles that will guide you in your journey to successfully run and grow your agency!

Tony J. Onaissi is the founder and CEO of Isoratec, a home care technology company, and of Home Care Lebanon, a home health and home infusion business he founded in 1998. Contact Isoratec about CRM software at https://www.isoratec.com/