‘Boots On The Ground’: Why Home Care Provider-Home Health Agency Partnerships Work
Home Health Care News / By Joyce Famakinwa
Personal home care and home health care are both branches connected to the post-acute care family tree. As such, home care leaders believe that there are numerous ways that their organizations can help alleviate home health provider pain points.
One major pain point that can be seen across home health care are referral rejection rates. Last year, the industry had a 76% referral rejection rate, compared to 54% in 2019, according to data from WellSky.
Jeff Bevis, chief operating officer at Caring Senior Service, sees home care as a natural ally for home health providers that are struggling in this area.
“It’s been a matter of time [that we] partner with them,” he told Home Health Care News. “[One way we do] is by trying to limit the hours, or the time, that the home health nurse is spending with their client. In other words, when the home health nurse is with a client for 15, 30 or even 60 minutes, home care workers can pick up more of the non-medical client needs to keep them happy and healthy in the home.”
The San Antonio, Texas-based home care franchise company Caring Senior Service has roughly 50 locations across nearly 20 states.
Bevis noted that this kind of arrangement gets to the heart of the referral rejection rate problem. It allows the home health agency to take on more referrals without making new hires or having to stretch their existing employees.
Currently, Caring Senior Service is collaborating with two home health agencies in rural Illinois to help lift the burden on these providers.
“We assigned a care manager to each of those home health agencies, and they’re meeting with those agencies once a week to talk through the patients that are most in need of non-medical home care activities and services, in order to reduce the amount of time and pressure on the home health agency,” Bevis said. “It lets us pick up a larger part of that slack for them, and makes more efficient use of their home health nurses.”
On its end, partnering with home health providers has been a referral boon for Caring Senior Service…
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