Posts Tagged ‘PDHCA’
Private Duty Homecare Association Leadership Summit: Wednesday – Day 3
Birds-of-a-Feather Roundtables
Day three of the 2012 Private Duty Homecare Association Leadership Summit began with attendees learning from their peers at our Birds-of-a-Feather Roundtables. Facilitated by experts on various topics, attendees sat around tables to get input and to discuss ways to grow and improve what they are doing related to the topic. The questions were flying and watching agency owners share their best practices was a great collaborative exercise. Many continued their discussions post-session and planned to exchange contact information post-conference.
Topics at the roundtables included:
- Alternative service offerings
- Modeling private home care services based on a concierge model
- Social media as a marketing tool
- Google & Grandma: SEO tips
- Health care reform
- Grass roots lobbying efforts for home care issues
- Ethics and the new age of private duty home care
- Disaster preparedness
- Long-term care insurance ins and outs
- CRM and workflow processes
- Wage and hour issues
Software Speed Dating
For those interested in learning about scheduling and management software, attendees joined the first-ever software speed dating session. Four different vendors presented for 15 minutes each. They highlighted what differentiated their software as well as highlighted the items that current customers find the most beneficial. Vendors that participated were eSolutions, Generations, Shoshana Technologies, Rosemark and Heath Trust Software.
Closing General Session
Private duty home care agencies are facing business-changing issues from current legislation. From health care reform and all that trickles down from those initiatives, Bill Dombi, Vice President of Law for NAHC, closed the conference with a thorough download from Washington DC Bill opened with the fact that our biggest concern should be how we are going to meet the great and growing demand for care. He added that, because it is an election year, he predicts we will not see the health care reform act repealed in 2012. However, it will be a central part of the 2012 campaigns for presidential election.
In 2012, several issues are on the forefront, including the fate of healthcare reform law at the US Supreme Court. Everyone is really looking toward the US Supreme Court to see what they are going to decide with these cases. What will be affected out of these decisions will be:
- individual mandate which addresses the minimum coverage provision
- Anti-Junction Act which deals with applicability
What might be considered the most impactful issue on the table for private duty is the Companionship Exemption. Bill went through many of the updates about where legislation stands as well as what we can expect in the near future. For a recap of these updates, please watch the Legislative Update videos at www.youtube.com/PDHCA.
NAHC has an action plan which includes conducting an economic impact study as well as a media campaign. Bill mentioned that agencies can go the NAHC website to send messages to Congress.
Post-Conference Intensive: Focus on Sales
Led by Barbara Akst, BA, MA, CEO of Training Unlimited of Virginia, this time served as an interactive work session. Attendees came prepared with their sales plans to focus on goals and objectives to establish action items to carry out upon returning to the office. A key take-away from the session for the attendees was to understand and determine the difference between knowing goals vs. objectives. Another great learning from the session was the acronym “SMART” Goals. SMART stands for specific, measureable, achievable, results focused, time bound. Barbara encouraged attendees to think about what is it that they want in a sales professional in terms of characteristics, what their role will be and what their performance expectations are.
Watch what happened at the Private Duty Homecare Association Leadership Summit on the PDHCA YouTube Channel!
Private Duty Leadership Summit: Day 1 – Monday
This year’s PDHCA Summit introduced a new program, the pre-conference intensive, which focused on Operational Tools and Results. Everyone came prepared to learn, and there was great information for start-ups all the way to multi-million dollar agencies. Ginny Kenyon, of Kenyon Consulting, started out the intensive with an impactful statement for all agencies offering private pay services, “One service line in private duty will not cut it.” She encouraged the audience to think outside the box on ways to include creative ways to engage new, potential business. Here are some examples given:
- Mommy and baby programs
- Day of sugary support
- Cruise companions
- Home modification
- Holiday helpers
She pointed out that business is anything your customers are willing to pay for and that you can provide confidently. She also recommended that you heed caution when considering new services. In other words, give careful thought before launching. Make sure you follow state rules.
A big focus in the pre-conference intensive was the Operations Dashboard. Knowing where you are in terms of data will be the only way agencies can remain profitable and successful during growth. Agencies have to know what costs are: productivity of staff, cost of leads, cost of referrals, conversion ratios, average hours per new client, per active client, loss ratio, etc.—bottom line, you have to look at gross profit and net. A good operational dashboard will help you figure that out. According to Ginny, “Salespeople should be making 25 to 30 sales calls per week.” Additionally, she advises that agency owners should make sure salespeople know their “speak” when marketing to referral sources.
Next up was Patricia Drea, focusing on benchmarking. She recommended that small agencies (those with revenue under $500k) track key indicators such as:
- Lead tracking
- Lead conversion
- Monthly profit & loss
For agencies with $1M and above, Patricia noted that a referral analysis should be added. It is also at this point that she recommends following up with customer service surveys to make sure the quality of service is still there and allowing for measurement of change.
Once an agency moves into the $3M and up revenue category, a comparative performance between people on staff should be added. Scorecards and process improvement are necessary for improving performance, and Patricia was quoted as saying, “Make sure to continue to use benchmarking after implementing process improvements so you don’t slide backwards.”
Some of the numbers that agencies should pay attention to when benchmarking are the average number of hours per care recipient. This value lets you know if you are recruiting fast enough. Also, pay attention to profit margin. Patricia stated, “Industry standards say that the average profit is 15 to 20%.”
A big takeaway for the groups was this simple, but powerful statement, “You won’t make up profit margin with volume.
Patricia also recommended that office staff salaries and benefits should be 12 to 16% of total gross revenue.
A great take-away from the entire pre-conference intensive for all agencies is, “Private duty agencies need to become data-driven organizations.”
Scott Spangler wrapped up the morning session with a quote about the positive effects of having a functional operational dashboard, “The dashboard is a great tool to catch greatness.”
Continue to follow PDHCA Conference updates at #PDHCASummit on Twitter and watch important video of conference speakers on the PDHCA YouTube Channel!
