You are gonna book a meeting from a meeting with a lot of folks and you are gonna get a lot of referrals because referrals equals what? Freedom. Hey everyone, Steve “The Hurricane” here and on today’s episode of “A Drink With “The Hurricane”,” we’re gonna talk about the most important key contact at all referral sources.
So folks, here we are, we’re talking about the most important key contact in a referral source. I just wrote an article for the Home Care Pulse talking about this exact subject, because it has always been before, during and now after the pandemic, the most important key contact at a referral source is the administrator. Why is the administrator the most important key contact at a referral source? Because it’s simple. They are the boss. If you want to be able to market to that building you need their blessing. If you want to get referrals from that building you need to know that administrator and how to properly leverage a working referring relationship with your administrator if you want to be able to get referrals. Plain and simple.
I’ve had referral sources where I didn’t know the administrator would stop referring to me because the administrator told their staff to refer to other people. On the flip side, I’ve had accounts where I didn’t know anyone except for the administrator, and I got a ton of business from and through that administrator. So, they are always the most important contact at a referral source. So, now there’s three parts to building a relationship with an administrator. Like, “What can I do, Steve, to get referrals from the administrator?”
And so the first example I’m gonna go over is you get to be the eyes and the ears for the administrator as to what the reputation is for their building outside of their organization. One of my favorite clients, Stacey and Franny, who you see in the pictures right now here, built a huge multi-million dollar business off of their relationships with administrators. They are the sounding board for that administrator. So when they come in and they sit down and they talk to an administrator, they go over what the reputation is on the street for the business that the administrator is representing. Sometimes it’s, “We haven’t heard anything about your account,” and it could be a positive or a negative that nobody’s talking about it. Sometimes it could be, “Hey, listen, you know, administrator we heard something happened here. I just wanna let you know that people are talking about it, good, bad, or indifferent.” But by giving that sounding board information to the administrator, it allows them to know what tweaks and what direction they need to take the business going if they want to get the growth that they’re after.
I think back to when I had my relationships with my administrators and there’s one in particular that really stands out, a buddy by the name of Bob, I won’t say his last name just in case you know who he is, because he’s a great administrator. But every time I would sit down with Bob, he and I would talk about what people think of my building. What is the reputation on the street? What do patients say when they get discharged from here back home, how their experience was like, give me the real rundown. And I was very honest with Bob. If I heard something good I let him know if I heard something bad, I let him know, and if I didn’t hear anything, I let him know. In all situations being that sounding board is a huge valuable resource to an administrator and key in developing a long term relationship.
The second thing you wanna do is give updates on outcomes of patients that they’ve sent to you. If you have a referring relationship with your administrator, that means that they’re sending patients to you. It is in both your best interest and they’re best interest to know that you are giving them positive outcomes. What do I mean by a positive outcome? When you think about a nursing home, a rehab center, an L tech, even a hospital all of these places get penalized when there’s unnecessary re-hospitalizations upon discharge within a 30 day window. How do you avoid it by having private duty home care? You actually fulfill your services helping with activities of daily living bringing people to the doctor’s appointments helping them get dressed, showered, bathed whatever it is this person needs, when you do that, you improve the outcomes. If that person is somebody who they felt was going to get readmitted to the hospital by you keeping that person home, going back regularly following up and not just following up in a timely fashion, follow up at the 30 day mark and say, “Hey Bob, guess what? I’m here today because it’s been 30 days since we brought Diane home and we’ve kept her home and she did not end up back in the hospital.” By improving the outcomes of our referral sources we can actually help them leverage better outcomes to grow their census. What better way to create a true working referring relationship than to improve the outcomes of our accounts.
Finally, the third thing, which I’m gonna say is the most important one because in order to improve outcomes you have to get referrals. So there’s a catch to it, right? We have to get referred in order to be able to improve the outcomes. So we have to start the relationship to get them to refer to us so that we can deliver on improving the outcomes. So, I actually like this one better and this is to collaborate on events with the administrator. All right? So, when you think about what you do for a living you are a Home Care Agency, you’re trying to get more patients. So are our referral sources. One of the best ways that everybody is familiar with on how to get patients is by doing events. You can do events for the public and invite people to come to the community that you’re trying to partner up with and you’re one of the co-sponsor. So you facilitate the event together with them. Their building is shown off. You are there getting the contacts and all the information as well and then you share in the risk. I’ve also had people do CEU events for hospital discharge planners and hospital social workers, and you have had a nice restaurant or a nice hotel where people could come, get some food, get the credits that they’re after and then have a nice experience at the same time. And you share in that cost, you share in the planning, you share in the inviting and gathering the RSVPs and everything else necessary to pull off this event without a hitch.
When you do these collaborations this is you actually working side by side with your administrator over several weeks to several months time to pull off the event. What happens is you develop a true working and more importantly, a trusting relationship that will lead you to get the referrals that you’re after. So, there you have it folks. These are three quick tips on developing a relationship with the most important key contact at your referral source. If you have been watching these videos and you like these videos, you know what you need to do? You need to register to come to the next home care evolution conference. We have one coming up soon where I can give you everything that you need to blow away the competition. So click the link right now below and I’ll see you at the conference.
www.homecareevolution.com/conference