Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Dawn Fiala, Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie VanBooven RN BSN provide insight into home care marketing strategies. They cover in-person, in-field sales and online marketing every other week. These podcast episodes are part of the Home Care Marketing Mastermind, sponsored by Approved Senior Network®. Find more information at https://ASNHomeCareMarketing.com
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Unlocking Home Care Success: Reducing Readmissions and Building Community Connections
In this engaging session, Lisa Marsolais, Dawn Fiala, and Annette Ziegler from Approved Senior Network share invaluable insights into the home care industry, focusing on strategies to reduce hospital readmissions. Learn how proper discharge planning and collaboration with home health services can prevent readmissions, benefiting clients, families, and healthcare systems. Explore creative marketing ideas such as pumpkin decorating contests and cookie decorating for engaging with communities and boosting your business. Don't miss out on the holiday-themed leave-behind campaigns designed to enhance your agency's visibility and success as we approach the end of the year.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Housekeeping
00:40 Meet the Team
02:01 Accessing Missed Meetings
03:33 Using the Collab App
05:06 Home Care and Reducing Readmissions
05:40 Understanding Readmissions
09:20 The Role of Home Care in Preventing Readmissions
09:35 Enhancing Discharge Success
13:59 Challenges and Solutions in Home Care
19:56 Marketing Strategies for Home Care
23:45 Practical Tips for Home Care Providers
25:04 Breaking the Readmission Cycle
31:48 Q&A and Final Thoughts
32:30 Replay and PDF Links
33:07 Q&A Session
33:40 Pumpkin Decorating Contest
38:26 Case Management Week
39:22 Bone and Joint Health Week
40:10 Halloween and Thanksgiving Ideas
44:10 Veterans Day and Remembrance Day
45:12 Hospice and Home Care Month
47:45 Winter Coloring Pages Campaign
51:55 Crafting and Cookies Open House
54:20 Holiday Cookie Decorating
55:59 Final Q&A and Closing Remarks
Continuum Mastery Circle Intro
Visit our website at https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
Get Your 11 Free Home Care Marketing Guides: https://bit.ly/homecarerev
Shall, we get started.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's see Rules of the road. I will do that you want to do. Rules of the road Okay.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:I'm in control here of the road, okay. All right, I'm in control here of the screen, okay.
Speaker 3:Housekeeping lines muted and less speaking. Share stories, experiences, tips, ask questions or you can use the chat. Make recommendations and tell us what you want to know about home care. Okay, reintroductions. Should I start, since I'm already speaking? Yeah, you go for it. I'm Lisa Marcella. I have been in home care, had been in home care for many years, wore all different hats, because you all know you can't stay in your own lane in home care. It just is what it is. It's a totally unique beast. I love being here with you guys and watching you through your journey and helping you through your journey. Being here with you guys and watching you through your journey and helping you through your journey.
Speaker 1:So thank you for letting me be a part of your home care world and I will pass it on to Dawn. Hi everyone, I'm Dawn Fiella. I've been at Approved Senior Networks close to three years and I can't believe how fast it's gone by. I also have a background in home care, same as Lisa done, kind of all of it. I love increasing the private pay side of the business. It's probably my specialty, and I love working with all of you. So thank you for joining us today and allowing us to help you in any way we can, annette.
Speaker 2:Okay, hi everybody. I'm Annette Ziegler. I too, 20 plus years in home care and marketing. I'm one of the trainers here for the sales training classes here at ASN. So I'm one of the trainers here for the sales training classes here at ASN, so I know many of you that are on here. I love teaching you all the tips and tricks of how to get more referrals and market out there and make you more successful, and we have a great program today, so welcome.
Speaker 3:And Valerie. She's a co-owner. She's not here. I don't think yet Okay how to watch meetings that you have missed. So here we go. You can go on to the sales forum here homecaresalesforumcom. Your username is your email address and your password is whatever was emailed to you when signed up, or you can use the forgot your password feature. You can just click on that.
Speaker 1:And I want to say, if you guys have not gone into the forum yet or into Mastery Circle, the portal, we have a three-part series on how to get 24-hour jobs, 24-hour clients, in there. So I would pay attention to this and get into all of these portals and become active, because you're missing out on some things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, so you can go to on your desktop. You log into the forum here and you see where that arrow is pointing to learning. That is where you can find all of these of the older sales training or from weeks prior. And I think if you go to the next slide, this is what it looks like when you log in. Here's the continuum sales. If you're in other programs, like our sales training, you'll see another box there for sales training and yeah, that's what it looks like. And then here is when you click through there. You click on that box and you get to hear with all the different weeks of all the different continuum sales mastery circles and all the topics, all the leave behinds, all the links to those things, so you can personalize those for your company.
Speaker 1:Yep. You just click on the one you want to watch and the video pops up and you can watch it to your heart's content.
Speaker 3:Watch them all. Yeah, can you believe that it's already there, holy Christmas? Yeah, it's already there. Ok, the mobile version. So the collab app how to use it and what it's for is to keep us connected even while you're on the go. So here's the link here If you have iOS, apple phone, right or iPad, or you can click on this link and load it to your cell phone, and then here is for any of us Android folks, and you just go to collab with the K and this is what it'll look like when you get in on your mobile phone. You'll just want to join the group on the right manages for us, because that must have been a screenshot that Valerie took off her phone. But this is what it looks like here and you can still go to learning and everything. You just join group. And then the top I guess some people call it the little hamburger, the horizontal lines there. You can go there and you can find anything you need to, as well as the bottom. There are all the pages there to the bottom. So, yeah, keep in touch and you can see all this cool stuff.
Speaker 3:We love to see what people are sharing, especially when they take our ideas and make them even better. Jj did right here. This is one of my favorites. He took the positive capsule prescriptions and he got little prescription bottles and made them so cute. So I really love that. And then here I think it was touching hearts test. She always great ideas. Sometimes I want to steal her stuff, but you can see all this stuff here, any of the questions and answers and we check here all the time, so feel free to see what other people are doing as well as ask questions.
Speaker 1:I don't know if Tess is here, but I believe it's her birthday today.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is Happy birthday Tess.
Speaker 3:I don't Okay, it's your own.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Lisa Okay.
Speaker 2:So, our agenda for today. We all thought this was a great topic to go over today home care and how you can help reduce readmissions. We're going to go over some talking points and strategies to gain more patients discharging from rehab and hospitals. We have some leave-behinds for you that you can use when you're out doing presentations the readmission wheel and breaking the readmission cycle and then we have a bunch of October, november and December leave-behinds really great ideas to kick off the end of the year for you. Okay, what is readmission?
Speaker 2:Readmission happens when a patient's readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of their last discharge. The patient's readmission does not have to be the same reason that brought them into the hospital or the rehab in the first place. It can be something you know, unplanned admission readmission. For example, somebody a patient is discharged after a heart attack. They fall a few weeks after and the admission can be to the same or different hospital. That counts as a readmission. You know, through their insurance, the risk, the increased risk of injury, makes a strong discharge plan essential. The best plans include home care for patients with serious conditions or complex needs, especially if they don't have family members to help them regularly leaving the hospital. More and more we see people being discharged. They go home alone, no family in town. They don't have a good plan set up. It's more risk for them to fall or to go back in the hospital within a few days or a few weeks.
Speaker 2:Okay, next slide. So studies by insurance companies have shown that elderly patients discharged from rehabilitation or the hospital to home care are significantly less likely to be readmitted within 30 days if they have that proper plan. It's really big. Right now, medicare and Medicaid services have reduced payments to hospitals for readmissions. They're making a significant concern for the healthcare providers. They get dinged. They're facing penalties for these readmissions, so they're really paying attention. There's a strong motivation to reduce the avoidable readmissions and administrators are directing their teams to prioritize the reduction of these avoidable readmissions. So it's a really important thing that's. I know it's big here in New York and I know Don and Lisa it's in their areas too, so it's something to be to know about and so when I was out in the field I didn't really understand the significance of this at first.
Speaker 1:But again, if somebody discharges from a hospital and comes back within 30 days, when they come back, medicaid Medicare is not going to reimburse the hospital for that stay. They're not going to reimburse fully. They'll reimburse some, but it's less than what they normally would do. And right now is the time of year where they're looking at goals for next year. The SNFs and the hospitals and their higher-ups are saying we've got to get this readmission rate down. And they give them goals. And so if you can come in now towards the end of the year, beginning of next year, talking about readmission, this is front of mind for them right now because this is what they're being told by their higher-ups We've got to get readmission rates down.
Speaker 1:Imagine a patient comes in and their stay costs I don't know $12,000. And normally Medicare might reimburse I don't know 10 of it or all 12. I don't know. But now, when they come back within 30 days, now they're only going to do five or something. You can see how, if that's happening over and over again at the SNF level, hospital level, it's very expensive and so they're being trained to keep readmits down, and home care has a very big role in that. Even if we could get them to stay on services even for just those first 30 days, so they get over the hump right, that's a part of it. So if they have somebody in the home with them during that first 30 days, they're much less likely to readmit. Learning this, using this language, talking about it, is going to help them see you as a partner, and that you even understand this to begin with is a big deal. Yeah, true.
Speaker 2:Thanks, dawn. Home care reduces readmissions. We know that. It benefits the client, it benefits the family, it reduces the burden on the health care system and it positions your agency as a desirable partner. Next slide, dawn. Okay, enhancing discharge success the role of the home care alongside home health. To prevent readmissions.
Speaker 2:The patient is discharged from the hospital or rehabilitation. To prevent readmissions. The patient is discharged from the hospital or rehabilitation. The social worker, what their job is to do is to refer home health to avoid readmits. But that alone is not always enough. They go in for hip replacement or heart surgery. They may have a nurse following them, they may have PT following them, they may have OT following them. The nurse is responsible to schedule that for them and it's through their insurance and they will get that home health coming to their home.
Speaker 2:However, what I found when I was talking to these patients or signing up clients sometimes the patient would think, okay, I have home health coming, I don't need home care. But here I can tell you sometimes they don't go to the patient's home for two or three days. Their patient goes home and they walk into the home. They may not have no groceries, they need their medications and this PT or the nurse may not stop by for a couple of days. They don't come that same day of discharge. So the patient needs to understand that home health is just stopping them once or twice a week. They're not there to help with the daily tasks. They're not bringing the garbage out, they're not making their meals. Home health could be there. Home care can be there the day they're discharged.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point too that you make, Annette, that they don't start right away. We do, and when someone gets home, I would say that first chunk of time is going to be the most crucial, because if a fall is going to happen or something bad is going to go down, the new medication makes them faint or I don't know whatever could go on. And we know too from being in home care for years and years. Those first three days they're home they actually regress a little bit because they're doing more on their own. There's carpet to put wheel the walker through or wheel the wheelchair through. They have a new diagnosis, they're on new meds, there's all kinds of things going on with them and home health.
Speaker 1:I think that the rule is they have to go out and assess them within 48 hours of getting home, but they don't actually have to start and they start as soon as they can. I'm not saying there's something wrong with home health, I'm just saying they're not like we are where we can even be the right home and make sure they get in the house and the caregiver's there with them from the start of getting home. So you make a really good point there. They don't start immediately, and that is probably the most crucial time that they should not be alone or without care. So that's a really good point, Annette.
Speaker 2:I just recently lived this through my sister who was in the hospital for a few weeks and she has really bad back issues and she had PT scheduled to come to her house and they are supposed to come within 48 hours but there are backlogs here in New York. I could speak for our area, me being in the home. Can I go? Give me the number, let me call. So I called and the physical therapist called my sister and she said this to her. She said I have 15 patients today to see and I know I'm supposed to come to your house but I can't. So she didn't even see my sister for four days after. Luckily, my sister, she's okay, she's not that old. When she's 70, she's fine.
Speaker 2:What if this was somebody who's like 85, 90? They're getting home from rehab. They're deconditioned, they're laying in their beds, they're tired, they may need to be on new meds. So that's why it's to have home care in there right away and advocate and help this person, educating the social worker and the discharge planners how having home care along with home health sets up patients for successful discharge and can prevent readmission. Whenever I talk to these social work discharge planners, I let them know we work together with home health. We're there together. You know, we can even work schedules where sometimes the families would say I have the PT coming Tuesday and Thursday, we're going to have you come Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday. Works well that way, and I'm sure, dawn, you probably did the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the same kind of thing happened and sometimes they would say we don't really want the caregiver here when the nurse is here or when PT is here, because they already they see that as coverage. But I think what they don't understand is they're there for an hour, an hour and a half. They're not there that long. It's not enough time to really be there as an assistant. They're there to help them with their exercises, change a wound, care, bandage. It's not the same at all.
Speaker 2:Okay, next slide. So things to consider after discharge the patient they may have restrictions. Are they going to have restrictions? Example hip replacement. They can't bend. They may need standby assistance. Are they on a new medication? Are they going to need monitoring? Maybe they need reminders. Follow-up care when they're discharged there's always follow-up appointments. It may be a couple days after, maybe the same week. Who's responsible to bring this person to their follow-up doctor appointments? Do they have transportation.
Speaker 1:It's not even just that too. Think about the patients that don't call to make the follow-up appointment. They don't even know that they're supposed to call their medical or their whoever, whatever specialty doctor it is. They don't even know they're supposed to make a follow-up appointment, and then that follow-up appointment doesn't happen, and then maybe the doctor would have seen something at that follow-up appointment that everyone else is missing. That could also be a readmit. So there's so many things that the caregiver, home care, can do to prevent those readmissions, and this is the time to start really talking about that, because the end of the year is coming and it's just more in discussion in their meetings right now. So right.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times too, there's a lot of confusion because there are so many different calls coming in from automations, from the different offices too, that it's just so confusing to the person who's home that they're just like I have no idea what's going on. And a lot of the times, having someone there to advocate for them and just help explain this is for PT, this is for meds, this is for this is, these are what your appointments are and help with that aspect I think is super important.
Speaker 1:And speaking about that too, I think it's important to train your caregivers to look for those discharge papers. Right, we had caregivers that were more ones that we. They just were good about this. Some caregivers are better at some things than other things, and we had caregivers that I that we liked to help handle discharges more than other ones, cause we, they knew we trained them all the same, but some of them just really took control of this.
Speaker 1:And let me see your discharge papers. Oh, it looks like you need to make an appointment with PT or with your neurologist, whatever it is. We better get that scheduled. Oh, it looks like they called in some new prescriptions. Maybe we better go check that out and say let me call the pharmacy and see if they're ready. These seniors coming home have been through surgery. They've been from the hospital to the SNF. They're confused and exhausted and if they are on new meds they're trying to adjust to that and maybe their mental isn't quite right now and they really need someone to help them with that if the adult child isn't around, and maybe their spouse is loopy too or busy with other things or they're exhausted because they've been in the hospital and the SNF visiting their significant other.
Speaker 1:this whole time. Everybody's tired and wiped out, so the caregivers also need to be trained to look at those discharge papers and ask for them if somebody's just gotten home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely Sorry. Another piece to that, just really quickly, is that we would have, anytime there's a start of care or a change in condition, which is when someone comes home from a readmission or from an admission right, they're coming home, they're discharging home we would have a client care or a lead caregiver, like you spoke about there, Dawn, that some are just better than others and you can train everyone up to get there. But we always made sure that we had that paperwork and I would even sometimes I used to do this at assessments as well with the family but I would bring the little printed copies of just days of the week and a little calendar, a blank calendar say, okay, this is what we're doing, this is all of your appointments, because they are listed when your next appointment is here, and so just make it a little friendlier and then stick it on the fridge or whatever. So there's lots of different ways to do this, as home care is figuring out all of that, that whatever works for that person.
Speaker 1:And I think too that if you're going to go to the rehab to sign them up for care before they go home, which is what the social workers prefer it's better for you because you have more time to find a caregiver and it's just nice to have that piece of the discharge plan done for the social workers. So it works really well to go into the SNF, get them signed up while they're still there. If you've done that, you can also you have more access to like discharge papers and who's their neurologist and who's this. You can always go back to the social worker if these papers are missing or whatever. That's why it also pays to have a really good relationship with the social worker, not only referrals, but so that you can help your clients. When they do get home, They'll give you the entire face sheet, the whole thing. She has all their information Okay and help your clients. When they do get home, They'll give you the entire face sheet.
Speaker 2:Face sheet, the whole thing. The face sheet has all their information. Okay, and I guess we've interrupted. No good point. They give you these 10 pages of discharge papers and, like I said, I'll bring my sister up again who was totally with it. She was totally confused. They went over it with her real quick and I went and I looked through all her papers and helped her, but she's I'm thinking wow, you're totally with it and you can't even figure out what you need to do. So, yeah, it's definitely important to have somebody there to help.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they need equipment supplies. The social worker may have ordered a shower chair or walker. Maybe it's not there. Somebody might have to call and find out where everything is. You may have to go pick it up. People forget. Maybe the social worker didn't put the order in that happens.
Speaker 2:What adjustments need to be made in your house for home safety? Maybe there needs to be some rugs or cords removed. Maybe they're coming home after a surgery where they need to have more room getting into their bed. Some things may you have to make it safe for them. Have a safe environment, so many things when they come home, because it may be different from when they left. In home health you find out will they be. Is home health coming to the home? You can find out who they are, who the company is, and having home care in the home is additional support. Like we said, it just sets the client up for a successful discharge and helping them to continue recovering from home. Insurance cuts people so early now when they're in rehab, they're going home weaker and weaker. I see it all the time. They're still rehabbing when they go home. So you're there to help them continue on, maybe for a few weeks or a month or however long it might take.
Speaker 1:I think too the best or the fastest way for me to grow private pay was to be marketing to the skilled nursing facilities, and when you're doing that, all those referrals are discharges, they're all discharging and they're the most frail of the referrals you'll probably get. But they are also the bigger jobs. They last longer usually and a lot of them start as 24s and taper down as they get better. So it's a great market to go after, for sure, but you also need to be equipped with all of the things we're telling you. I also had the number of someone who could put grab bars in quickly for me, the company. They would come right out and get those grab bars installed right now. They would put in ramps.
Speaker 1:Now this person maybe is in a wheelchair, and they weren't before. They were in the SNF. So having somebody in your back pocket that can help you with that is a really good thing too. She used to come, run out to the home. She'd be like I'll be there in a half hour and she'd start her measuring. Sometimes they need a bar by their bed, by their toilet, so that they're safe, and so if you're not doing this yet, this is a piece of it is having people in your back pocket that can help with those types of things, so that it is going to be safe and the home health agency will appreciate that you've done that too, because PT is going to come in and go where are?
Speaker 1:the grab bars, why? So it'll already be done or in motion, at least by the time that happens. If you're going to go after these discharging people, have some resources for yourself too. They also can order hospital beds. Find someone that does hospital beds, someone that will do Hoyer's for you, someone that'll do a stand Hoyer. All of these types of people get their cell phone numbers and tell them I want to be able to call you when I'm in a home and have you respond and I will continue to use you as long as you're doing that. And a lot of them know how to even get Medicare to cover the Hoyer lift, the wheelchairs, the walkers, the grab bars. I would start spending some time on that. If this is something you're going to go after and I highly recommend you do go after this type of business it's probably the most profitable, fruitful business you're going to run into in this market.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can get a lot of 24 sevens because sometimes, like I said, they're being discharged early and it may just be like, hey, for just this week or just for two weeks we're going to do 24 seven and then it may cut back to 12 hours a day. But there's a good opportunity to get some good hours because these people are home alone in their fall risks and they need somebody there with them.
Speaker 1:You know 24 seven and the thing is, even if maybe you're getting a couple of discharges a week at first from different sniffs, and maybe they're 24s and it's only going to be for two weeks, that's okay.
Speaker 1:In two more weeks someone else is going to do some discharges for you.
Speaker 1:They're 24s, and so you can see that these 24s are going to start to overlap and build on top of each other, and some will stay 24s longer than others, and so that I really feel like if somebody has had a fall or they have a new disease that they're dealing with that may cause a fall, new medication blood pressure medications are really I don't know how many patients or clients we've had I've had that are on like a blood pressure medication to lower their blood pressure, but it's too and so that they should have somebody in the home monitoring this with them, helping them to stand in case this is the time right that they're going to go down, and so all of this leads to 24 hour business, and so I think I this is definitely time right that they're going to go down, and so all of this leads to 24-hour business, and so I think this is definitely a really good business to, or good place to get referrals from because of that, because they're going to be bigger jobs and again it can just continue to build, to just keep replacing those 24s as they reduce their hours.
Speaker 2:Exactly Okay, as we know the things you could do that a lot of home health doesn't do. You can do meal preparation. You're going to get grocery shopping. Some of these people may have issues and they need reminders helping them follow the discharge instructions and the orders. Transportation, assistance with mobility Many need standby assistance for a while until they are stronger.
Speaker 2:Laundry, housekeeping, changing their bed linens, bringing out the garbage to the curb and we can't forget, everybody's got their little pets. We take care of their pets. Take the dog for a walk, Take the cleanup of the dogs, Go into the yard and do the cleanup. We had many clients that had pets. That's an important part. Assistance with their PT exercises that's big. A lot of times their exercises are just sitting next to their lazy boy chair and they're not paying attention. But your caregiver can do the exercises with them and it's bonus points if the PT is there seeing your caregiver do that, you know, with the client, Like I said, also clean and refresh the refrigerator. So so many things that people need help with when they get home. They're tired, they're weak, so there's a big opportunity for you.
Speaker 2:So this is something I used when I worked in home care. This is a document leave behind that actually Lisa recreated for us, and we have the Google link and the Canva link, but I would use these two documents that I'm going to review with you when you do a presentation or you're meeting with discharge planners. Sometimes it helps them think about it. This document is the readmission cycle. There's a medical crisis. There's limited home health care, social isolation. They're missing their follow-up appointments, Medications are missed, Immobility, poor nutrition, poor hygiene, missed early warning signs. So this is the cycle. And then we could go to the next wheel, breaking the readmission cycle. So then this person is going to have immediate supplemental home care. You can start the day when your patient is discharged. We can even come and pick them up, but we can be there the day they get home. Make sure they're all set up for success.
Speaker 1:I have a question for both Annette and Lisa. I know the social worker law. The rule is that home health is going to be out there in 48 hours. Do we think that the social workers think they're starting service in 48 hours? I think probably. I think they think that too and it's a big misconception. It is the nurse is going to go out and assess them within 48 hours. That's the rule. And to be careful how we say it, we don't want to make the social workers feel like they don't know what they're talking about. But we can start services, because I think if we're pointing out to them those first three days are very difficult and if home health doesn't start until after that and again, home health's only there for an hour to two hours a week, so that's really not going to keep them from readmitting either. So really stressing that the way you break the cycle is to have immediate care in that home when they get home, and home health is not going to do that.
Speaker 2:So sorry to interrupt but I was just thinking you brought up a good point because, like when I would present this to case managers, I would bring these handouts and I think it got to the thinking wow, that does make sense. This really can help our patients from not being readmitted because they're getting somebody taking care of them every day. They're getting all their needs fulfilled. So we're helping to break the readmission cycle. We're the important part, and sometimes they don't realize how well you work with home health. We teach really not. We teach this all the time in our classes. We're not competition with home health, we work alongside with them. These are great. We have the Google Doc and the Canva Doc. I think it's a great talking point when you're talking to social workers and discharge planners and bringing up that readmission. That's big when they hear that because they're getting dinged all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think this is really good. This is my first time really seeing this, so I really love this. Annette, I think that this is very powerful. If you were to sit down and do a lunch and learn, you could give them some stats about all these slides. We're talking about readmission, how it happens, how home care helps with it, even if we some stats about it, maybe and then talking about the readmission cycle. What did you call them? You called them something a long time ago revisitors or it was frequent flyers, or I forgot Frequent flyers.
Speaker 2:Maybe we used to call them frequent flyers In the hospital.
Speaker 1:They call them frequent flyers because they're coming back, and every time they come back they're like oh, Medicare is not going to reimburse us, this is going to be a freebie. It's costing the hospital, it's costing the health care system, it's costing the SNF and we can break this readmission cycle. This is really powerful. I love this. This is a very powerful it worked really good.
Speaker 2:I would always bring it presentations and I'm sure all of you on here today. You have clients that go to the hospital. They come back and then you get the call three days they're back in the hospital. It's just such a cycle there. It's just if these discharge planners understand how much we can help and we can educate them and talk to the families, hopefully they'll refer more to you and you'll get more referrals.
Speaker 3:Even that first piece there, immediate supplemental home care. I think if you touch on this, you're not really saying hey, you guys are letting them go too soon, or hey, no one's out here for up to 48 hours. They're not here at hour one, and so I think if you just touch on that a little bit more, just like could be there that same day, be careful how you say it, but ultimately they need someone there and we can be there right away while that nurse or that person may have quite a few other people on their plate on their task list to get to.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think too it's important to talk about. Every year. People get a certain amount of hospital stay visits a year. Seniors do and stay visits a year, and as it gets closer to December, if they haven't used all of their time, everybody knows they're going to do better. If they stay longer, right, they're getting one-on-one, they're getting care, their vitals are checked, they're getting food. If they stay longer, they're going to be stronger before they get home. As it's December-ish, if they have a lot of days left, they might keep them longer, but come January they're not going to, they're going to keep them shorter, not because they don't care or what. Those days that they get have to last the entire year right A whole year and we don't know what the year is going to bring.
Speaker 1:So come January they're more apt to discharge them a little bit sooner and they're going to need more home care because they're not discharging them in a bad way, they're not sending them home half like. They're just not healthy yet. It's just in December. They can keep them longer and so I would think they're going to need home care regardless. But I think come January it's going to. They're going to even be more apt to be like plus. They're also going to get hammered by their corporate offices.
Speaker 1:We need to reduce the readmission rate. The readmission rate needs to come down. They're going to start hearing this now and the beginning of the years. They're going to get goals, and so we can be a big part in helping them with that.
Speaker 3:And that's too. When you go in and you talk about this very slide, the bathroom is further, further away. How am I going to walk with my walker and my dinner and my water when I can't stand and cook dinner? You know what I mean. So all of those things are so different. It's not just brought to you. If you don't have someone there to help, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, we have a couple more lead behinds for you. Our services reduce readmission rates and what happens after discharge. We have the Google and Canva links. These are all. These are a couple of things that we talk about in our sales training too, but they're great leave-behinds to use. But feel free to use them. I think they're beneficial because, john said, the hospitals and rehabs are getting dinged and they're graded and they're not getting fulfillment in their payments. They need to have these patients be set up for success when they get home.
Speaker 1:Any questions? Do you have any questions? The first few days after discharge are the hardest. You'll see on the flyer why that is, and so educating the social worker about that too is going to be important. We do have a raised hand. Tammy, do you have a question?
Speaker 2:Yeah, real quick. I just don't see the Google link or the Canva link in the chat. I'm looking for it, though.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're on the slide. You're going to get a copy of the slide deck. So if you look down here on the slide, you'll get the slides emailed to you, and then the Canva links are there. Okay, thank you, they're all on every slide. That's a really good question. So that's where you'll get the slides and then you'll have the links within the slides.
Speaker 2:You'll get a PDF. Okay, we send a replay of this with all the PDF documents within around 24 hours. You'll get it approximately or so, so just look for it out when you're emailed. But all the links are on there, okay, good, I was trying to take pictures so fast, oh you don't have to.
Speaker 1:Okay, Tammy. No, we're going to send it all to you.
Speaker 3:You haven't hit your fingertips, just give us a holler if you don't see it, and then they go into the portal.
Speaker 1:You could watch this two months from now. If you wanted to rewatch Sure, have access Yep.
Speaker 2:Okay. All right, that is my part. And now, lisa, we have, like I said, we've got a array of wonderful leave behinds.
Speaker 1:Before we get? Do we have any questions about readmissions or anything we covered before we get into? The leave behinds Anybody?
Speaker 3:Or even other ideas that are things that you guys have done in the past. Any outside of the box stuff?
Speaker 2:I'd like to be able to share yeah it in the chat, let us know.
Speaker 1:okay, quiet today something in the chat. We'll come back to it. Go ahead for sure.
Speaker 3:Okay, time is now start gaining interest this is your reminder in bright red pumpkin decorating contest every year. People absolutely love this and so we bring it back every year because it's the best. So you can do something like this take this little flyer out to a couple of different communities, you can leave this behind, but the cool thing is that you have to talk with someone to coordinate this. So you must speak with the social worker. You must speak with the director of nursing. Wherever you're going, this is a must speak with someone. Director of nursing, wherever you're going, this is a must speak with someone. So this is your reason why you need to talk with them this time that you're visiting. So it's simple you decorate some pictures. There's a due date, october 31st. So this could be you going in to a facility, a community sorry, bad word, community and doing this with them. So you're going to have to bring a table and everything that's involved with this if it's paint or whatever, or you can drop off a few and say, hey, we want to see pictures, we want to see, and then we'll let you know who a winner is.
Speaker 3:We had somebody last year that did a couple of different contests and they gave away. Like on the first flyer, there are a couple of hours of free care right here, three, three hours of care. I think someone did an eight hour. So we jokingly said what if they asked for two hours here, two hours there, right, no, it's straight, straight, straight. But the link will take you to a fillable. You can fill this out, you can change what the winner will receive, or you don't offer that at all. You can do what you want to do there, um, but this will get you in front of them. They have to respond to you. You'll get a cell phone number, especially if a social worker is sending you the photos, right, because they have to text the picture. So this is going to get you in front of them a whole bunch of different ways, and this is what we want. This is the reason why we are going out, and every eight to 10 days we're going out consistently to talk with folks.
Speaker 1:And I have personally used this for three or four years, and come August they're asking me you're going to do it again, right? Yeah, forget about us, please, and you guys still have time. Just pick some sniffs that you haven't been able to get into, ask them to help the seniors decorate too, and play scary music and bring cookies and do that. There's lots of ways to use it. You can do a combination of both, but it really will help you to get in front of them. The fact that they have to text the picture gets you on a texting basis, which will change that relationship for sure, Definitely.
Speaker 3:And these little pumpkins, their official name is what was it? We Be Little Pumpkins. You can find them at farmer's markets all over. Just Google different farmer's market pumpkin patches, even grocery stores like Sprouts.
Speaker 2:I saw them at Safeway.
Speaker 3:The other day Safeway Grocery Store. Really, yeah, I don't know where I was, but I was in one that already had. They were really small about this big and they already had little faces painted on them, which I thought was really cute too, just to take out and leave on a desk or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. But, like we said, participation can be different One or two per facility. I'm having trouble speaking today. My brain's going faster than my mouth. Or you can just deliver and leave, or you can do it with them. I would want to do it with them. Here's a couple of different examples from past years. I love the ginormous eyeball. That's really cute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they won that year. Actually, it is very cool. They really get into this. And this one was on a mirror and it spun, it moved in a circle. It was very cool. Oh, the lashes, yes. And when they sent it to us it was a video, so that's a screenshot of a video. And there was this very like glamour girl music playing. We probably won that year because it was very cool yeah, and the bubble bath is pretty darn cute too yep.
Speaker 1:and then here down here on the bottom, one of my marketers brought girl scouts and boy scouts. She had one of each. Her children she bought, brought their troops in and they sat and painted with the seniors, and so it's another way to do it and it's multi-generational and they absolutely loved it. So there's so many things you can do with this, but you do need to not just be all business with your referral sources. You need to bring some fun into their day-to-day, and this is a great way to do it, and it's a great way to welcome fall too.
Speaker 3:And I think that's what, when you're going in and you're doing it at the community with them, it really shows your heart in that space, because you're helping, you're engaging and I think that really helps people see who you really are too, not just the business side, but also your heart. And I think one year, if you look there like that, on the left-hand side, the just batch of pumpkins and there's the sticker with their company logo and everything and it's attached to little flyers, that's really cute too. That was a great way to just bring it in and maybe hand it off to everyone in the assisted living or wherever they were at Senior center, wherever.
Speaker 1:And they got three hours of free service. It looks like that's what they went with. It's fun, so fun.
Speaker 3:Okay, national Case Management Week the 13th to the 19th.
Speaker 3:The running theme for case managers is that they are rock stars, which we know they are because they get to be all over the place and have to deal with so much, and just wanted to showcase that. This year's theme for the Case Management Week, though, is powering the future of healthcare, so we want to power the future of social workers with rock stars tying the two in. So, if you go to the next slide, yeah, so take them a case of rock stars and or give them one, one per case manager. I really like these little energy stones, too, and their stars, so I think that ties into the theme, and it's just something really cute. You can get one of those little baggies and you can put other Trotsky's in there, other things that have your logo, but I just this is really cute to bring in, and that, again, knowing their language, so knowing that they, the items they sell on their actual care case management website, is rockstar, everything's rockstar, so I think that knowing that would be super cool.
Speaker 3:Bone and Joint Health National Action Week is the 12th to the 20th Take care of your bones, and these are some of the things we want to give some information right. So we're giving information about how you take care of your bones. So for healthy bones and joints you need calcium, vitamin D, exercise, sunlight. Also, don't smoke or drink alcohol in moderation. So our caregivers help patients maintain a healthy diet and exercise plan to help maintain your bones and joints. So I just thought this was cute, especially because we could tie in the bone pens that time of year, and so here's some of them. You can click on the links here. There's little hair clips that are bones. That I just thought were really cute. You can maybe with a bag. You could just clip that bag closed Mini skeletons and the bone pens again, they're really cute. Go to the amazon links. There you can find those.
Speaker 3:Okay, for halloween and I know that not everybody celebrates halloween but for those that do, or for those that want to go and reverse trick or treat, we're always waiting to give you a hand. Call our text father. When you need a hand in home care, get it, because the hands, and then you can. Everyone has a box of gloves, so you can take a box of gloves and fill that with some glove filler. Some really fun little items here that represent halloween a little bit and then candy and just fill those fingers, fill those hands and you can. Annette always says to make sure you get those little spiders. Let me let priscilla in get those spiders and put them on the finger and just really cute and that'll keep stuff in place too, and then you tie them closed and you can take them out.
Speaker 3:Okay, so for Thanksgiving, november, leave behind. This one is really cool because you can celebrate. What does it say? Celebrate Thanksgiving with these giant posters and you can actually get your logo on here and put something here. I like this, thankful for our partnership, because maybe we don't have a partnership yet, but I want to put that in your head. That's what we are. We're partners, right, and there's a couple of different examples here the happy Thanksgiving with the Cardinal and the Turkey.
Speaker 3:But the idea behind this is to take this out.
Speaker 3:If you go to the next slide, you'll see some successful coloring together and, yeah, the idea is just to go out.
Speaker 3:You need to talk with someone. You can't just throw this on someone's wall. So this is a great reason to you know, talk with them and tell them how much you appreciate their partnership and that you really wanted to set this up. You may even want to bring a little like one of those little tables with the because cause you're going to need to provide the markers, the all of the things to be able to color here, and so maybe even that table could have your brochure or presented by, but have something there that shows them that it's from you, so that all of the nurses, all of the case managers, all of the social workers passing by see that it's from you and they can see. That's just a really cool way to get everyone involved. The link there below and I know that someone found another link for a little less expensive, but it wasn't I don't think they had as many uh topics or as many a variety of things- yeah yeah, what's cool about this, too, is you can put your company name, like this says nursing.
Speaker 1:You could put your company name up in the corner and then color that part in before you bring the poster so that it really stands out, and get your logo on there. So it's customizable, which I think is cool, is it?
Speaker 3:there's a couple. Uh, let's see. Alessandra says amazon has cute mini pumpkins and ghost candles too awesome, and she sent us the link yeah, yay, I want to look.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll look later. Okay, and then here we go. Another one for november. We can help don't be a turkey and stress over discharges and so we want them to know. Call us now, because we have trained caregivers ready to get your patients home safely. That's the reason why we do so many different leave behinds is because we're piecing information to the same people that we're seeing every week. We want them to know and remember all the different things we do for patients when they're going home. But this is really cool. You can grab these little stress ball turkeys, put your logo on these and people will use these every year, over and over, as a decoration for their desk or the office or wherever they're at, even put them on their car dash while they're driving around. But these are really cute, super successful. People love these and they'll remember you buy these for sure.
Speaker 1:Another fun just thing that we used to do is gobble till you wobble with snacks during November. I love that that has a little turkey on it, just like sweets, like candy corn and stuff like that, and we would just put gobble till you wobble. They love that, I don't know why, I actually love that.
Speaker 3:Now I want, like, a turkey bobble head, where it would just be like it has to make the noise too. It has to make the gobble noise. That would be really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a gobble till you wobble is really something that took off as well. Okay, keep going, I love it.
Speaker 3:Okay, honoring all who served. So Veterans Day is approaching and just join us in thanking our veterans for their service and sacrifice. You never want to forget them and go to the next. So I found this really cool just all together package and you can order from 150 of these packages to 400. And there's the price range there. But what comes in the package is the bag right, the pen, the pin and the key chain. So I just thought this was really cool. It's super inexpensive and it just shows that you're supporting our veterans and being patriotic.
Speaker 3:And then I also did this for our Canadian friends the same type of theme, but we did the. What are these called? Again, poppies, I can't remember the flower name. Yeah, poppies. And if you go to the next slide, you can actually use these for us here or for our Canadian friends. I really love the red poppy. Just remembrance, so we never forget. In Canada they call it Remembrance Day and for us it's Veterans Day, but it ties in with each other Perfect, yeah.
Speaker 3:Another one here is it is Hospice and Home Care Month. I love it because hospice and home care always need to work together and they can support each other. And I remember always getting calls I swear people oh, mom's on hospice now, so we don't won't be needing you anymore. And I'm like, well, are you sure about that? Let's talk about that for a moment, because I'll tell you why you do. And so this is a great way to just keep just tie that in. If you're going out to speak with even your hospice folks, if you're going to go do an in-service or a lunch and learn, they need to know that, yeah, they should be calling you, because this person's family doesn't want to be caregiver, they want to be family and they're going to need someone to help them, whatever situation they're in or their condition changes. Also, this is an original poem by me.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, if you guys want me to sign it, let me know.
Speaker 2:Good job Lisa.
Speaker 1:We read it last time but it is beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not reading it again, and then you'll see a repeat of this kind of, because I use this for the holidays as well. But getting the mason jar and these cookies it's just a recipe, right? So I thought this would tie in. But filling this it's 6.25 ounce of cookie mix into the jar. You could add on the very top sprinkles. I've seen a whole bunch of different ways Just make the jar beautiful. You don't have to take this to everyone. Of course it's a little more of an expensive thing, but you could use this during for your hospice folks or for whoever you feel like should get this, and then you can actually glue or tape this or get that sticky paper that's about that same shape and you can tape it onto the mason jar and it will just look really cool too I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, okay, finished, all right, finish this year or strong, yeah, okay. How can we finish strong? What do we need to do? There's lots of things that we talked about this last time too getting your revenue up and being prepared for the December fall and billing, like all that happens. These leave-behinds can help you to finish the 2024 strong, because these are the things that are going to get them to come out and talk to you If they're seeing your face and you're doing something fun and you're doing something creative and something different and memorable. And it's warm, right, it makes you look like you're a warm, caring person. It's going to help you finish the year strong, and the holidays really lend to that.
Speaker 1:We have the pumpkin decorating contest in October and Thanksgiving or November We've got your poster and then, starting in November, you can start prepping for the winter coloring pages. This is another campaign I did every year and everybody wanted to participate. Every year They'd start asking me about it. So, oh, I guess we have more slides. I didn't know that. That's we do, we do, I think the holiday we'll come back. We'll come back to these. Sorry, they're out of order. I probably did that. I'm sure that was me. That's okay.
Speaker 1:So the coloring pages. What you're going to do is you're going to get these coloring pages and we've got lots and lots of them. We give you the link to the folder where all these coloring pages are held. We're being really careful to be politically correct and not have anything that's got any kind of religious connotation. It's just winter, winter wonderland coloring pages, that's it. You take them and you bring them to schools, elementary schools, and you hand them out. You can call the school ahead of time. I actually popped into some schools without calling them and said who would I talk to about this? They distribute them to the classrooms. The students put their first name, their age, their grade in school, your logos up here at the top and some kind of statement with your phone number. Be careful not to say keeping seniors at home, because we're going to use this everywhere and it could offend assisted living buildings. So just a general statement and then you have the coloring page.
Speaker 1:What's going to happen is the teachers, during the whole month of November, are going to have their students color these for seniors and at the bottom they're going to put a little message, your special message to a senior. Get hundreds and hundreds of these done. So this is one that was done. His name is Lyle. Happy holidays, my snowman is happy. My snowman can throw snowballs. Some of it is just, but that's what makes it so endearing and so touching and so warm. And the seniors love. I can't tell you how much they love receiving these.
Speaker 1:So in November you're going to start passing them out. You're going to give the school a deadline. You have to give them a hard deadline and the deadline should be before they leave for winter break. I would pick them up by the end of November. Just call it. I'm out there November 30th and I'm picking these up.
Speaker 1:Get as many as you can, because when you go to the assisted living, when you go to the SNFs and you go to independently, go everywhere with these and say, would you like some of these? They're going to say I'm having a holiday dinner with my residents and there's 150 of them. Can I have 150 of these? One place can totally work. Well, I've had sniffs say, oh, these are so beautiful and I think do you mind, can I go in and just hand them to every one of your patients? Absolutely. There's hundreds of people sometimes in these buildings. So be prepared. You want to get the biggest bang out for your buck out of this and it gives you, it puts you in that holiday cheer also. It just makes the holidays so special when you're doing a campaign like this and it goes over really well. They love it.
Speaker 1:And this link here will take you to the folder. This folder houses all of them. We've got lots and lots of different ones. Some of them already have the name, the place to put the logo and the name and everything. So this went over really well for me.
Speaker 1:I used it year after year. Everybody loved it and really wanted to participate every single year. So the first year I think we did 100 and we got into the thousands because that's how many we needed. Everybody wanted to be involved and enjoy it, and the messages the children write are just and it's big, awkward, writing right and you can tell it was a child. And then you could give these out to your clients too. We started giving them out to our clients when we would do our supervisory visits and then even the employees would keep them up in their cubicle. Can I have one? And they'd keep it up in their cubicle all year. So super fun campaign and referrals bumped up big time after doing this too, and it got me in front of everybody. Okay, lisa, we'll go back to your side.
Speaker 3:I just love those two. Didn't you say that they actually use them as like a little placemat?
Speaker 1:Yeah, next to the meal is like a placemat. Yes, many buildings did that where they would put it next to the winter dinner. They would have a dinner with the turkey or ham or whatever, and then address the table with these coloring pages. It really went over well.
Speaker 3:I love it. I love it Okay. So here's another reason to go out and talk with someone. Also, I actually did this as an open house. It was about the holiday time and I did an open house and we rebranded at a certain company that I was with. But this would work there for that, something like that. Or if you just want to have an open house, could and have your referral sources come, something like that. But this is ABC Home Care, presents, crafting and Cookies.
Speaker 3:You could go into a community, speak with the social worker and or director of nursing, wherever you're going, and say, hey, I want to do this and we want to decorate cookies and I just want to come and have fun with you guys for an hour or two. Just talk to a few different folks. You'll have to bring everything needed, everything that you want to bring holiday music, you name it, the cookies, the all the stuff that goes on top of them. You can do cider, you can do cocoa, any of those things, but I just there's a. This is like a little flyer, it's like an eight and a half by 11 or whatever the standard size is, and you can go into the links and change this up If this is something that you'd like to do, either at your place or someone else's. This is a tip that Dawn gave me too, I think, right, my local bakery. So a helpful tip is, if you needed cookies and you want sugar cookies and this shows a variety of cookies, but you can actually go to your local grocery store fries Vons, wherever give them a call or stop by and ask, tell them what you're doing and ask them what kind of time would they need for you to be able to go and ask for however many cookies you want 100, 200, 300, whatever it is and they may even throw in who knows, the icing the sprinkles, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of them would just donate. They'd say, let me see your business. And I'd give my business kind of like, oh, I want to donate, I want to donate, how many cookies do you want? So you'd be really surprised when you tell them the why you're doing this. You can bring your flyer with you and your business card and some of them will just donate cookies and yeah and all of it, but the top, the sugars, the sprinklers, the icing, yeah so certainly worth a try, for sure, and just what.
Speaker 3:And again, a fun way to get out there and just show your community partners your heart and you're just in that space and you're just loving on everybody and you're doing something fun and nice and sweet and most people decorating a cookie for themselves, so that's okay.
Speaker 1:But if they're decorating for others, bring some hand sanitizer, especially since Some gloves Bring the gloves. I mean, if they're decorating for themselves, it's probably okay, but if you're going to be doing for others gloves, hand sanitizer, something yes, yes, okay, I'll run through really quickly because it is on the hour here, but here's one just again.
Speaker 3:You're one smart cookie. Thank you for choosing us to get patients safe home safely for the holidays or safely home for the holidays Just a really fun, cute one. Look familiar. I'm bringing it back. We could do this with the same type of stuff, but you see, this one has sprinkles. Decorate them cute. You can make gifts out of this for your top referral sources or whatever you'd like to do. Some people have done this for caregivers, you name it. You do what you want to do with this. But just a really cute idea here, this center one with the little blue cookie cutter. You can add cookie cutter. I've seen little looks like light. They're clear, just like a Christmas light or holiday light, and they fill it with sprinkles and just tie it on the side too. So I've seen so many different ways to do this. Super cute. Just make sure that your leave behind comes with it and people use this. Maybe not right away, but when they want some cookies, this is in their cabinet. They're going to pull it out and use it and remember you for sure.
Speaker 2:I love the sprinkles, Lisa. That's a good idea. I never thought of that because they're decorating cookies that's great, love it.
Speaker 3:It's my favorite. The trilogy, the Halloween, thanksgiving, christmas my fave, okay. And so here's all that stuff that I showed you before, but here's sprinkles too, and then, if you wanted to get really crazy and fun, here's all of this stuff too, in case you just want to click and go. You don't want to have to search for this. Here's the cookie cutters that you can add and just like, maybe tie into this there's. Here's the ribbon and some candy canes don't forget those. You can add a candy cane that does about anything and it'll spruce it up and it'll really cheap way to spruce. Yeah, yeah, it'll holiday it up for sure. Just put it in there all right, all right, that's everything.
Speaker 1:Any questions that were good. Thank you so much for coming, everybody, and have a great weekend too.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming.
Speaker 1:Thank you Great weekend, bye, bye.
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