Home care providers are no longer staying within the confines of what is often considered traditional non-clinical personal care. Instead, providers are rolling out more complex care and setting up their operations to ensure they can deliver these services.
While delivering complex care involves some risks, home care providers have found that specialty service lines have been a “game changer” that meets changes in patient demographics, expands revenue streams and fosters community partnerships.
Synergy HomeCare has seen an increase in higher-acuity clients. The company has tried to lean into the larger shift as a response, according to CEO Charlie Young.
One example of this is Synergy’s “hospital-to-home” concierge care program.
“It is very much recognizing the fact that many people who are being discharged from the hospital today, whether it be from surgery or a longer stay with an illness, are not necessarily ready in traditional senses to be home,” Young said at Home Health Care News’ FUTURE conference.
Synergy is a Gilbert, Arizona-based non-medical home care franchise. The company offers companionship services in addition to personal assistance, housekeeping, live-in care and 24-hour home care services.
The company’s concierge care program includes transportation to doctors’ appointments, care coordination, medication reminders, safety measures to help prevent falls and respite care.
Synergy also has a specialized care program for individuals living with cancer. The goal of the program is to provide in-home assistance throughout a person’s cancer journey.
One way the company helps its franchise owners succeed operationally is through marketing and training.
“We need our franchisees prepared to deliver these services in the marketplace,” Young said. “It starts with marketing, making sure that we are advertising, promoting and giving franchisees the tools to develop this business in their local markets. Our learning and development teams also create curriculum and training for caregivers and other operational staff within the businesses.”
Like Synergy, Home Helpers Home Care has also embraced complex care, implementing a number of specialty programs. The company developed a memory care program, as well as one focused on chronic disease management.
A few years ago, Home Helpers also launched its Cared-4 program, a bundled-services program to address gaps in care.
“It’s been a game changer to help fill a lot of gaps,” Amanda Corrigan, chief operating officer of Home Helpers, said during the discussion. “It’s also provided a lot of opportunities for us to have additional partnerships with people in the community, for our franchisees, and with different clinicians to help bundle programs, and it has created some additional revenue streams.”
Cincinnati-based Home Helpers is a home care franchise that provides personal care, nutrition, companionship and other services. It serves over 1,000 communities in the U.S.
Operationalizing specialty care programs
To ensure the success of these complex care programs, Home Helpers has given its caregivers more access to training. The company has also invested in technology and AI tools, according to Corrigan.
“We have caregivers that feel more supported, that feel more ready and able to take care of clients with more of those complex needs in the home, as well as our families feeling better about it, they feel safer,” she said. “They feel more connected to their client, which also means they’re going to be at home longer with us, and they’re going to trust us to do more pieces of that care.”
Even when home care providers have the ambition to implement higher-acuity care programs, operationalization is difficult without the right staff in place.
Corrigan pointed out that having the right care plan in place is only as good as the people who execute it.
“Every caregiver that comes into the office is not going to be equipped or ready to perhaps work with someone that has dementia or any type of different chronic disease out there,” she said. “That’s why our bench is so deep with our training that we do for our staff and for the care that we provide.”
What’s more, having a staff member who is ill-prepared to take on more complex patients could lead to financial and reputational damage, according to Lorraine Riche, chief client officer at Talentcare.
“You’re delivering higher complex care, and you actually have a lower margin of error,” she said during the discussion. “You can’t get it wrong. … If you get it wrong, you have a clinical quality issue. … You lose the trust of payers. You’re on the cover of some magazine that you don’t want to be on. You’re on the internet, and somebody’s writing about you on Indeed or Glassdoor.”
Austin, Texas-based Talentcare is an applicant tracking system, employer branding and talent acquisition platform.
Home care providers elevating their services should also be prepared to face challenges.
One of the biggest challenges for home care providers new to offering this kind of care is the required mindset shift.
“You’re not providing shifts, you’re not providing hours, you’re providing programs and complex solutions for families that are in need,” Corrigan said.
Corrigan also emphasized the importance of building partnerships with other organizations that can help home care companies achieve their goal of beefing up their care delivery model.
Synergy’s partnership with Teladoc Health’s (NYSE: TDOC) D2C mental health platform BetterHelp is a clear example of this. Earlier this year, Synergy rolled out its Total Well-Being program in collaboration with BetterHelp. The program aims to help seniors improve their physical, mental and social health.
“If somebody has a need beyond what our caregivers can provide, we have BetterHelp as a companion,” Young said. “They’re going to provide services, phone consultations, Zoom, texting, and other engagement pieces. It’s been very well received by our client base, and it’s going very well.”
Ultimately, Young stated that his company’s partnership with BetterHelp exemplifies the kind of holistic approach that home care companies will begin to embrace going forward.