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The demand for quality home care is increasing at an alarming rate. The competition is tough, and home care agency owners need growth strategies to have an edge over others.

According to research, the global home care market is estimated to reach USD 484.13 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 8.33% between the years 2018 and 2026.

Between managing caregivers and clients, ensuring quality care, and complying with the latest regulations, most home care providers forget to keep their growth plan as a top priority. However, that doesn’t mean that this isn’t the primary goal.

Powerful Strategies to Grow your Home Care Agency

While growth and expansion might seem overwhelming initially, know that it is manageable. Achieving success is not an overnight project. Home care providers can make drastic changes to their business by focusing on growth and taking small steps.

#1- Define your Growth Strategy

It may be tempting to invest in new marketing materials and hire staff while trying to ramp up quickly. However, growing your home care agency without having a plan of action is similar to setting out on a road trip without a map. You may have a rough idea of where you wish to end up but don’t exactly know how to get there.

Additionally, not having a clearly-defined strategy is dangerous as it will cost you a lot of time and money. You need to market your services, hire more staff, and increase referrals, which means taking one step at a time.

Take time to outline your objectives and gather the necessary resources to clear mental clutter. Make sure to narrow down your focus to evaluate what matters the most.

#2- Gather Data On What Your Agency Can Provide

Post the COVID-19 crisis; business data has become the new currency in home care. An agency must work with professional referral partners, new pay resources, and others to market itself well.

Stakeholders want data that shows what the agency can provide and the type of impact an agency can have. Effective systems and clear documentation bring you a step closer to success.

Let’s suppose you don’t have an automated system to collect home care operations data. In that case, a non-medical home care software like CareSmartz360 may help!

You can derive valuable insights and up-to-date information with this intelligent reporting system. The custom reports section allows you to gather reports with the information you want.

Features like scheduling and EVV reports can take your agency operations to a new level by monitoring caregiver performance, tracking caregiver check-ins and check-outs, and monitoring client shifts.

#3- Enhance your Agency’s Onboarding Program

Building a solid onboarding program takes immense time and effort, but the benefits are worthwhile. A well-laid out orientation plan encourages new employees to see your agency positively. The caregivers also feel good about the company they’re working for and feel inspired to put in more effort and do a good job.

#4- Automate Scheduling Using Innovative Tools

Manual, outdated, and disjointed scheduling methods stress schedulers and steal time from meaningful and productive tasks.

By implementing software like CareSmartz360, you can easily create and manage client schedules based on care plans and authorizations. Using an easy calendar view, you can view the schedule of caregivers and clients by Day, Week, and Month. The calendar is color-coded to indicate open, approved, no-shows, and scheduled shifts.

Home care scheduling is one of the most time-consuming tasks. That’s why agencies are using home care scheduling software like CareSmartz360, which is easy to use and intuitive.

You can also align the best-suited caregiver to work with a particular client by matching criteria like specialty, availability, and distance. Agencies can easily create recurring schedules, saving you a lot of time.

A built-in intelligence portal cuts down the scheduling time by 70%.

#5- Streamline your Billing and Payroll

Like scheduling- billing and payroll systems are time-consuming and may hold you back. Fortunately, innovative technology may help you get back on track.

With CareSmartz360, the batch feature makes invoicing easy. You can create a new batch by specifying the criteria you are looking for. The batch is like a folder of invoices, which billers can process and send simultaneously.

The finalized invoice batches can be printed as PDFs and exported to QuickBooks. You may also send Invoice Notifications to the payers. Revising invoices is also accessible where agencies and billers may adjust the invoice, provide discounts, and attain total control.

With CareSmartz360, running payroll is easy! It allows users to create a payroll batch that may be filtered based on employee type, services, data range, etc.

You may also export payroll for accounting if you use ADP or Paychex. In case you have a different payroll vendor, you can create an Excel or CSV file.

#6- Stay Up-to-Date with the Latest Technology

Studies show that home care agencies that use technology will be more efficient during the pandemic and will be winners in 2022 and beyond.

Investing in the latest technology will help your agency make more money, which is vital to the agency’s growth and success. Not investing in a home care management software like CareSmartz360 will waste your time and money.

However, with cloud-based home care software, you can get a competitive edge to grow your business, provide client satisfaction, and retain your caregivers. Other benefits that come from using the software are:

• EVV for Accurate Time Tracking:

  The Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) solutions help agency owners verify which caregivers have clocked in and out on time and the total billable hours spent on the shift. EVV helps avoid confusion in invoicing, legal compliance, and settling disputes.

  Additionally, you may quickly change the schedule status, track caregivers precisely, and delete schedules at once, saving the agency’s efforts.

• Agency App to Organize Daily Activities On the Go:

  Home care agency staff need tools to access critical data to manage inquiries from anywhere and at any time. Being tied to a bulky computer, pinching, and zooming on non-optimized mobile web browsers are not HIPAA compliant and inefficient.

  The all-new CareSmartz360 Admin App helps with:

  1. Increased service levels for caregivers, clients, family members, and referral sources.
  2. Resolve client problems faster, keeping your agency staff balanced when on call or out of the office.
  3. Attract and retain the office staff with work/life balance, minimizing workload.

• CareSmartz360+ Caregiver App for Quality Care Delivery:

  CareSmartz360+ caregiver mobile app has an intuitive interface coupled with advanced scheduling features to give more power to caregivers. Some noteworthy features of the app are:

  1. Simplifies communication through multilingual support
  2. One dashboard to help caregivers stay updated on upcoming shifts
  3. Calendar updates and caregiver shift status
  4. COVID-19 pre-screening module for client and caregiver safety.

• Client & Family Portal to Know Caregiver Schedule, Care Plan, and History:

  The client and family portal helps align the client and his family with the agency to quickly view information about care schedules, invoices, and other communication by a home care agency.

  Additionally, this portal helps:

  1. Track caregiver’s schedule
  2. View spending history and invoices for quick payments
  3. Contact the agency to get information about changing care needs and updated documents

• CareSmartz360’s Learning Management System Helps Caregivers Expand their Skills:

  With a learning portal, agency owners can let their caregivers learn anywhere and anytime with a valuable resource. eLearning for caregivers assists caregivers in expanding their skills with well-designed short 10-minute courses that offer flexible learning.

  These 10-minute courses offer information on Assistive Devices, bathing safety, incontinence, and more to improve caregivers’ skills and understanding.

  The best part about LMS is that the agencies can view the caregiver’s progress on training courses and certifications.

  Digital library, payer management, and HR are some more features that make CareSmartz360 a technologically-forward home care software. While it can be easy for an agency to commit to technology, ensure that the frontline staff is introduced to new processes and tools.

In Conclusion

Every action taken in a home care business will have some consequence. Therefore, when making a decision, consider what produces the best results both in the short-term and long-term.

An agency must stand firm and direct its energies to areas with the most potential in order to produce favorable business results. Home care industry experts predict that some agencies will stay the same size; some may go out of business, while others will build and thrive.

Now is the ideal time to become a prominent player in the industry. All you need is a clear vision to lead your team to success!