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Mistakes occur. Unfortunately, errors in-home care occur at the risk of losing employees, client trust, and possibly even business revenue.

To avoid the unique humiliation and stress that comes with home care blunders, read on to discover the five most common mistakes made by home care businesses—and, more importantly, how to avoid them.

How many of these mistakes are you making?

We’ve worked with thousands of home care agencies and almost regularly meet with their owners to discuss the problems they usually face and the mistakes they often commit. This list is the result of those discussions.

• Mistake #1: Not making recruiting a priority
• Mistake #2: Unable to fill caregiver shifts
• Mistake #3: No feedback-gathering process in place
• Mistake #4: Failing to address the caregiver churn issue
• Mistake #5: Relying too much on the gut to make decisions

1. Not Making Recruiting a Priority

The greatest gift we could give our home care business is a steady flow of QUALITY caregivers who stay with us. It will solve a slew of problems while also giving you the time to focus on other critical goals such as business growth and scalability!

Despite being aware of all of the benefits which recruiting brings, many agencies fail to make it a top priority! Why?

Recruiting is a complex system with many moving parts. You might have figured out where to post job advertisements. You may have learned a few recruiting techniques along the way. However, manually shortlisting, screening, hiring, checking backgrounds, and onboarding quality caregivers takes an inefficient amount of time.

This isn’t the only thing. The human resource team must also provide necessary training, improve skills, foster relationships, and assist with certifications as per compliance.

Solution: Many agencies are missing out on opportunities due to a lack of technological tools. Home care businesses can streamline staff management, training, and time-consuming recruitment processes using the right technology.

2. Unable to Fill Caregiver Shifts

Scheduling inefficiencies are a significant cause of agencies losing business or credibility.

• Checking caregiver availability and matching them to patient needs is a significant and often redundant task that requires phone calls, roster management, and other manual activities that can impact business growth.
• Phone calls and SMS sometimes go unanswered, making it challenging to communicate with the caregivers, resulting in a loss of revenue.

Solution: Data-driven, automated scheduling will help you eliminate the guesswork and manual efforts associated with caregiver scheduling. It will enable you to experience effective scheduling, provide the best caregiver-client match, quickly fill open shifts, and easily handle missed visits.

3. No Feedback-Gathering Process in Place

The most common mistake that businesses make is, assuming that they have a thorough understanding of their clients! But, what they don’t realize is that some people don’t bring up their problems unless they are asked.

Remember, a dissatisfied customer will not be around for long.

Thus, listening to and acting on customer feedback from the start can transform this challenge into an opportunity.

Solution: A live chat feature on your website, a client support line, or an ability for your clients to leave notes about caregiver services are a few great ways to collect client feedback in real-time. Please make sure that your team is proactive in its response!

• Listen actively.
• Identify the problem.
• Be empathic and apologize.
• Present a solution.
• Take action follow up.

4. Failing to Address the Caregiver Churn Issue

Caregivers are the backbone of any home care business. However, many care organizations fail to address the issue of caregiver churn. You will set yourself up for significant problems if you commit to this error. Churn can lead to staff shortages, increased missed visits, decreased client satisfaction, and last-minute scheduling scrambles. As a result, churn can lead to poorer health outcomes, forcing an agency to turn away existing and potential new clients.

Solution: Retaining caregivers do not have to be a challenging task.

• Make an effort to develop a more personal relationship with each of your caregivers, whether you have 10 of them or 100.
• Create a recognition program for your caregivers as well as your agency staff.
• Employ artificial intelligence to get a high-level dashboard view of each caregiver’s Value Index and Retention Score, allowing you to:
  • Analyze Individual Performance
  • Predict Caregiver Churn
  • Engage Retain Caregivers
  • Enhance Productivity
  • Improve Revenues

5. Relying Too Much on the Gut to Make Decisions

We keep asking home care agencies, “How do you make better-informed decisions?” What we hear astounds us. Many of them continue to rely on their instincts for most decisions. They don’t realize that for a business to be successful, its decisions should be based on data, not emotions.

Solution: Many people are already aware of the power of data! Any good software solution can filter and export massive amounts of data into powerful, readable insights that agencies can use to identify critical issues, forecast cost savings, and analyze business performance to make better decisions.

One Solution to Avoid All the Mistakes!

If you’re guilty of some (or all) of the home care goofs mentioned above, don’t beat yourself up about it. The thing about preparing your business up for success is that it’s never too late to correct the course. Turn your mistakes into opportunities—and take your home care business to new heights.

Save time managing your home care business using CareSmartz360.

• CareSmartz360 assists with everything from connecting with potential candidates to filling caregiver openings faster, onboarding them, and training them to meet growing business demands.
• It enables you to plan, visualize, manage, and automate schedules simpler, faster, and more accurately.
• Clients and their families can quickly contact you and provide feedback by leaving notes on caregiver visits service quality using CareSmartz360 Stakeholder Portals.
• The CareSmartz360 AI-Hub uses powerful predictive analytics to anticipate a caregiver’s churn risk.
• CareSmartz360 offers custom data reporting solution with 200+ reports to gain rich insights for better decision making.

Think any of these can help your business prosper? Request a demo or contact our team of experts! We’d love to hear from you.