by Keith R. Crownover

OK. Let’s see. There’s Facebook, of course.  And…LinkedIn, Twitter, HomecareCommunity.org, blogging, MySpace, YouTube, and and countless others.  It seems as though every agency and company on the planet is either attempting to engage their customers via social networking or feeling left out for not having yet done so.  Does it matter?  Is anyone really listening or actually using these tools for something other than FarmVille?  Read more...

by Keith R. Crownover

That name has a poetic ring to it doesn’t it?  That’s not the name of a fictional character in a corny Western but was the given name of my mother who was born Elma LaRue Roub on November 9, 1930.  She wasn’t fictional but she was larger than life to me, my five siblings, her two adult step-children, 15 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren….I could go on and on.   Read more...

by Rhonda Chetney, MS, RN

As a former homecare director of an agency that offered skilled home health, hospice and private duty services, we seldom placed our focus for reducing readmissions on the private duty side of the business.  

As we continue to see constraints from Medicare for home health, such as Face-to-Face visits, more stringent Therapy rules and reimbursement cuts; private duty is emerging as the place where patient’s will receive increasing amounts of care in the home setting.   Read more...

by Joseph E. Fochler

The most expensive Go to Market Participant we can choose is using a direct Sales Force. While the least efficient choice we can make in terms of expense, often the use of a Sales Force can be our most effective choice of reaching our target market and producing the desired results.  Read more...

by Joseph E. Fochler

One in five Americans use social media websites as a source of healthcare information, according to National Research Corporation’s Ticker survey, which bills itself as the largest, most up-to-date poll on consumer healthcare opinions and behaviors.

The survey found that 94 percent of respondents have used Facebook to gather information on their healthcare, 32 percent used YouTube and 18 percent used Twitter.

The National Research survey did not ask specifically what social media presences the respondents checked out, what advice they were seeking or from whom. But there is plenty of evidence that social media users are following health-related feeds.  Read more...

After announcing that we were launching our new software solution, ClinicalVirtuoso, we had an amazing response from not only the industry at large, but from the very people for whom it was designed – homecare therapists.

We took the clear, definitive, evidence-based and clinically-driven guidelines established at the Delta National Excellence in Therapy Forum (also available in the Delta National Excellence in Therapy Report) and incorporated these into the early design of ClinicalVirtuoso.  Read more...

by Joseph E. Fochler

Let’s examine one of the more efficient (cheaper) methods of reaching our target market – the Internet. If we build a website, they will come. How many times have we thought that was the answer?    Read more...

by Josesph E. Fochler

Competition is intense! Almost every month, we see a new homecare, hospice or private duty agency open their doors in our community. Each and every one of these new agencies is vying for a share of the same market. If we had unlimited resources we could easily share our unique selling proposition and outcomes with the entire market using all possible Go to Market Participants. However, the reality of the situation is that we do not have unlimited resources to get our message to our target market. We must choose how we reach our target market with our limited resources and most importantly see a direct return on our investment.  Read more...

by Keith R. Crownover

I have never seen the classic movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring the great Jimmy Stewart.  I’ll have to add it to my Netflix list.  I understand that the naïve and idealistic Mr. Smith heads to Washington believing that he can make a difference, only to be confronted with a harsh and brutal reality.

I’ve just returned from a day of congressional visits that traditionally take place during the NAHC March on Washington & Law Symposium.  I have always loved politics (I made a “Nixon for President” sign and carried it around my elementary school playground. Please don’t judge me – I was only in the third grade!).  It is hard not to become cynical and disillusioned when seeing our political process up-close and personal.  Read more...

by Keith R. Crownover

I know that everyone who is anyone in cyberspace blogs these days. And, to be honest, I actually did write one blog entry way back when (I doubt that you can be called a blogger if you only “blog” once). While I have long wanted to start blogging, fear held me back. I view blogging as one of those things that is easy to start (as my earlier, single entry demonstrates) and very difficult to maintain.  Read more...