Blog Post: Marketing Home Health

If you have been reading my blogs about home health, you’ve probably created an image in your mind. There are many parts to the operations of a home health agency. One special part is marketing. Marketing now has lots of titles: Community Liaison, Account Executive, Marketer, and many more. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has strict rules about what you can and can’t do in advertising your home health agency. Yes, a home health agency provides nursing care to homebound patients, but like any business, it must advertise to get to the referral source which is mainly from the primary physician. That does not mean you can visit the physician’s office and expect to get referrals. Patients need home health care mainly from hospital stays. Try visiting a hospital and getting a referral. It’s not that easy. Bottom line is relationship. The referring physician will be pondering how long have you been in home health, how well do you know home health and what is the track record of the home health agency you work for. That’s relationship. If you’re new and trying to get in the game, it’s going to be a long slow process. You must have the desire to learn home health, learn the regulations pertaining to a homebound patient, learn the insurance particulars, and more. You need to walk the walk and talk the talk. Once you have created that special relationship with your referral source, it will follow you because the referral source counts on you to deliver the best home health services to their patient. You will become connected to that patient and you will have the desire to follow that patient from referral to admission.

We have several job postings and we’re looking for “home health” people. If you have what it takes, send me your resume and I’ll personally take it to the marketing department. Marketing home health is a tough job, but it’s very rewarding when you know that you played a major part in the patient getting the best home health care they could possibly get!  First in care, first in caring is what we do. How about you?