5 Tips to Rapidly Grow Your Home Healthcare Agency

The demand for high-quality home healthcare is dramatically increasing in the US, with more people over 60 years of age than under 15. This means that there’s a massive opportunity for home healthcare agencies such as yours. However, this increased demand has encouraged many agencies and home healthcare practitioners to kick into high gear, giving your business tough competition.

Growing a home healthcare agency in a competitive market can be challenging. The challenge is further escalated because you can’t use traditional marketing strategies in a sensitive industry such as this one. So, what can you do? Here are five effective growth hacks for your home healthcare agency.  

1. Analyze your specific market

The home healthcare market drastically differs from one location to another. For instance, your growth strategy would be different if you were starting-up an agency in Florida to that of what it would be if you were starting one in Montana. Understand what your market’s specific needs are. Some markets are more competitive than others. If you are struggling to recruit home caregivers, you are likely to approach a growth problem differently. In such a scenario, you may want to focus your advertising and marketing on recruiting the right home healthcare aides for the elderly before trying to grow your business.

When trying to drum-up business, speak your target audience’s language. So, culturally your messaging would be different based on the location you are at. What are the problems that elders face in your location? What are their needs, concerns, and interests? Identify these and then proceed with your marketing.

2. Subscribe to the right software

There’s a lot of paperwork, so to say, involved in managing a home healthcare agency. If you plan to expand your business, it’s critical that you have the right software to manage patient data. Data management, organization, and security will inevitably play a critical role in the performance of your home healthcare agency. Separately, you may also need to recruit, assess, and deploy home healthcare aides constantly. Think about what software/process you’ll use to recruit, assess, and monitor your home caregivers. The more effectively and efficiently you can do this, the easier you will find to grow your home healthcare agency.

Imagine having to track 15-20 caregivers, their location, and work every single day. Doing this manually can put a pin in your plans. Invest in good people management software.

3. Ensure that you have insurance

What if you invest heavily in building your business, only to lose your working capital to a liability claim? This can cause a serious setback to your business growth plans. That’s why it’s important to invest in insurance to prevent that from happening. As a home healthcare agency, your caregivers have to work within your patients’ homes where so many types of mishaps could happen. For instance, you could trip over a rug and damage your patient’s property. Your patient could trip over a rug and fracture his or her hip.

There are three types of home healthcare liability insurance that you should consider buying. The general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, and cyber insurance.

4. Establish yourself locally

As a home healthcare agency, your target clients are local. Local marketing gives you the opportunity to try different local marketing topics. Participate in local events like cancer marathons, community clean-ups or public exhibitions to meet locals personally. Create a network of medical personnel in your city so you can stay in on the latest happenings in your market. Your involvement in the community will announce to your potential clients that you care. There’s no better way to market a sensitive healthcare business.

Alternatively, you could also consider investing in your own events, which can increase exposure for your home healthcare agency and aides.

5. Form alliances

The best way to grow a business is through your personal network. Anybody that you can partner with inside or outside the medical community is a valuable ally. There’s no need to hesitate about partnering with other home healthcare agencies. Note that not all agencies target the same clients. For instance, there may be an agency in your city focusing on Alzheimer’s while your agency may be offering general care. You could team up to create a general event for healthcare awareness benefiting both of your agencies. You could also collaborate with non-competing nursing homes and assisted living centers.

Sensitive businesses such as the home healthcare business grow fastest through personal connections. That’s why you should invest substantial time in nurturing these relationships.

Wrap

As the demand for quality healthcare increases, so does the competition among home healthcare agencies in every city. That’s why it’s essential to focus on agency growth using the growth hacks mentioned in this post.