The next 12 months will prove to be an interesting year for homecare, hospice and private duty providers. More than interesting - it will be downright busy with many opportunities to advance your business priorities. Let's take a look at the rundown of what's in store:
Business Diversification
- Profitability is essential to home care businesses, but consider cash flow too. Look to ways to bring in cash faster with denial management improvements as well as offering a new service line such as private duty services. There is less regulatory scrutiny and no capitization on reimbursement.
- Data Analysis is critical for decision support with the data you already have buried in your software solution. Access your treasure trove of data to better review your agency performance, best revenue and referral sources as well as to identify areas for improvement.
- Different Patients and Payers need a review in 2014. As more baby boomers retire you will need to know how to attract the patient type that is most profitable to your business. Also, baby boomers are more technology savvy and attracting their attention with a new marketing strategy is required that employs social media and brand tactics. Lastly, contract with payers that can offset lower fee schedules and margins. Most important is to spread your risk over multiple payers.
Sales and Marketing
- Your sales team is the key to a successful home care, hospice or private duty agency. Be sure to recruit the best talent and train them well. Training is not a one-time event, but something your agency provides on a monthly or quarterly basis.
- Your advertising budget should be approximately 10 percent of your agency's gross revenue. Event marketing should have the largest allocation of marketing dollars to host events such as Diabetes Awareness Day, Hypertension Day or Foot Care Clinic. Hosting an event that offers education and learning will make you an expert in the community and the first to receive a referral.
Regulatory
- PECOS Ordering and Referring Denial Edits will be implemented on January 6, 2014. The edits will check the following claims for a valid individual National Provider Identifier (NPI) and deny the claim when this information is invalid: Claims from Part A Home Health Agencies (HHAs); Claims from clinical laboratories for ordered tests; Claims from imaging centers for ordered imaging procedures; Claims from suppliers of Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) for ordered DMEPOS
- ICD-10 transition on October 1, 2014 will move from ICD-9 code sets for for diagnoses and inpatient procedures. This transition is going to change how you do business—from registration and referrals to superbills and software upgrades.
- Hospice quality reporting and beginning July 1, 2014, hospices will be required to submit 2 Hospice Item Set (HIS) records for each patient admission – a HIS-Admission record and a HIS-Discharge record.
What will you do differently for your home care business in 2014?
