What’s up everybody, it is Steve “The Hurricane” here. And I’m so excited for today’s episode of “A Drink With the Hurricane” because I’m gonna be talking with you about three ways for you to stand out from your competition. So, raise your glass and let’s toast to your success, cheers.
So, folks, I’m just so excited, and humbled, and honored to say that this is the first video I’m filming after my 10 year anniversary. So, I wanna just give a big thank you to you, all of the people who have watched our videos, we have literally had millions of viewers of the “Drink With the Hurricane” video series that I started way back in 2012. So, thank you so much for watching. And so, with that, the 10 year anniversary video that I’m filming here is “3 Ways That You Can Stand Out From All Of Your Competition.”
Because over the last 10 years, plus the seven years when I had my own home care business, I have helped thousands of businesses separate from their competitors to be able to scale and grow and become the provider of choice with their home care agencies. And so, the first tip I’m gonna give you here, the first way that you can stand out from your competition is to specialize. Now, what do I mean by specialize? Think about physicians for example. Back in the day, 50, 100 years ago, there was one primary physician that did all medical services. Nowadays, you fast-forward to 2022, you have a physician for the foot, you know, your Podiatrist. You have an Endocrinologist, you have a Cardiologist, you have a Pulmonologist, a Neurologist, and it just goes on and on and on. There’s an -ologist for everything. A Virologist, right? With everything that happened with the virus last year and a year before. There’s a specialist for everything.
Now, keeping that same thought in your head for a second here. I also want you to think, when you try to get an appointment with one of these specialists, you are lucky if you can get an appointment sometime this month if at all. A lot of specialists aren’t even taking new patients because they’re all so booked. So, this is why I say specialize because the same thing happens for my clients. You can specialize in Dementia. You can specialize in Congestive Heart Failure. You can specialize in injury prevention or fall prevention, or hip replacements, and orthopedics. There’s so many different things that you can specialize in. What happens if you’re in a marketplace with 100 or more competitors, you will become the only person who specializes in this one area. And therefore, by default, every person who has that condition will contact you and should contact you first and foremost.
Second way that you can separate yourself from your competition is by offering care coordination. Now, care coordination is a step into the care management philosophy. And yes, you can do care management, but care management comes with a lot more specialties and certifications, and having a specific geriatric care manager who works for you, and you can do that. But care coordination is something that you can do where you can actually take caregivers and you can train them and you can promote them up in your organization, which is something I talk about in other videos on a way to be able to retain your caregivers.
Now, the care coordinator, what does the care coordinator do? The care coordinator is basically a field manager and a field supervisor. They’re driving out, they’re checking in on the caregivers, they’re checking in on the patients. And they’re making sure that you are providing the very best services that you say you’re going to provide. Right now, the national average is, when somebody opens up a case, they send the person out to open the case, and they don’t come back and check on that caregiver and that client until 60 days later. That’s two months without supervision from the organization, that’s not adequate enough. So, if you have a care coordinator, your care coordinator should actually be visiting your client and your caregiver every 7 to 10 business days. That’s huge, that’s many more visits in the same 60 days. You’re literally talking about having somebody come out there seven to eight times in the first two months of services to check on the caregiver, and check on the client, and make sure things are being done correctly. This gives you proper support for your caregivers. This ensures that you’re meeting the expectations of your clients which produces happy clients. And this increases the longevity of both your caregiver working for you and your client remaining on services for the long term. This is a great way to differentiate your company and stand out from your competition.
The third and final way that you can separate yourself from your competitors is really simple. It’s higher experienced caregivers. Now, I know it sounds like, “Oh, Steve, it’s really easier said than done.” “It cost me so much to get caregivers.” Well, when you realize, you take a look at the statistics. The majority of home care agencies around the country hire brand new caregivers. Most caregivers surveyed in a recent Home Care Pulse report said that the job that they’re taking, working at a home care agency, was their first job out of school. So, when you have an inexperienced workforce, they’re gonna make a lot of mistakes. On the flip side, when you hire experienced caregivers, i.e., people who have at least three years of experience in the industry, you’re gonna get fewer mistakes. You’re gonna have more confident caregivers who are able to take care of your patients and provide a superior level of care. You’re also gonna be able to take on people who are more medically complex.
Now, I know for those of you watching who deal with non-medical patients, “We don’t do skilled care.” I totally understand that, but it doesn’t mean that you are not taking patients that are medically complex. If you have a bedbound patient, that person still needs a sponge bath, they need help getting dressed. They need help feeding, they need help transferring, they need help with medication management. You need to send an experienced caregiver into that person’s house. Now, in order to hire experienced caregivers, yes, this means that you’re going to have to charge more money because you have to pay more money. But this is a huge differentiator, and it’s one that your clients from the private pay spectrum will pay more money for that experience, because this is talking about the level of care that’s gonna be provided for their loved one.
Now, if you need help with charging more money so that you can hire caregivers and do all of the things I discussed here. How do I set up the care coordination? How do I specialize in my area here? This is why we offer what we do. I highly recommend that you subscribe to the Home Care Evolution quarterly magazine. We have so many articles that are being written on how you can scale and grow your business, this is free content that you can access. And of course, if you need help, pick up the phone, give us a call, and we’ll give you everything you need to “Blow Away The Competition!”