Caregiverlist Care News: Private Duty Insider Newsletter by DecisionHealth June 21, 2011

Private Duty Insider Newsletter by DecisionHealth, June 21, 2011 Issue

Maximize Productivity, Resources Using a Caregiver-to-Client Ratio

Grow your private duty business by maintaining the appropriate caregiver-to-client ratio. Finding the right balance between having enough clients to keep your caregivers busy and having enough caregivers to staff your cases can be a challenge for growing companies.

The average home care agency that does about 2,000 hours per week should maintain a ratio between 1.5 and 1.9 caregivers for every client, ideally getting as close as possible to the “sweet” spot between 1.7 and 1.75.  READ MORE

Small Brands are BIG Marketing

A brand is a mental shortcut that instantly informs private duty clients who they’re dealing with, what’s being sold and what expectations they should have for quality and price. Because strong brands make your marketing so much more efficient, effort spent brand-building can have a huge payoff.

Here are a few tips for building a powerful brand:

• Clearly define your market. Markets can be defined by more than geography. Identify micro markets made up of your potential buyers and then tightly focus your marketing efforts on that specific group. Marketing that reaches unintended targets is marketing wasted.
• Create micro brands. Micro brands are smaller brands that can pack a big punch when they are targeted to dominate a micro market, such as a specific group within a community. Micro brands only need to work locally so rather than use expensive advertising campaigns these smaller brands are built with strategic networking, public relations and sometimes event marketing. READ MORE

Medicaid Dollars at Risk without Compliance by Personal Care Attendants

Medicaid-certified agencies can expect more questions about the compliance of personal care attendants with state qualifications. They also could face recoupment of Medicaid dollars in cases where non-compliance is suspected.

CMS makes that clear in its response to an estimate by the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), released June 7, that claims for unqualified attendants may have accounted for $724 million in unjustified federal-state spending in the year ended Aug. 31, 2007.

Following its usual claims review practice, OIG extrapolated the dollar figure from its audit of 450 paid personal care claims submitted in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia. Those 10 states accounted for 41% of Medicaid home health and personal care services in 2006.

Medicaid personal care attendants provide non-medical services that range from bathing and dressing to light housework, medication management and transportation.  READ MORE

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