Home Health & Hospice Week

Sending out a nurse with donuts just isn't enough anymore. If you aren't employing dedicated marketing staff, you're risking your home care organization's future, say home care marketing experts. "Selling and marketing home care and hospice is a necessity rather than an option," says Michael Ferris with Simione Consultants. "We have seen countless examples of fine, long-standing community providers who have been slow to embrace the concept and as a result have seen their census and revenues decline in a decade when the use of home care and hospice services have grown dramatically," says Chapel Hill, N.C.-based Ferris, who ran an agency in Houston in the 1990s. Such providers "go from owning the market to a diminishing market share," Ferris cautions. "It may be fine to blame new competition or unneeded competitors, but only they can control how they nurture, protect, and maintain their precious key referral relationships." Many home [...]