Home Health Blogger

Electrify Your Home Care Marketing: Get Board-Certified Specialists

Posted by Melissa Cott on Apr 25, 2018

Board-certified specialists will double your referrals.

Home Care Marketing...What would be the ideal 'opening dialogue' to have with a potential referral source like a physician or discharge planner?  It should go something like this...

"Hi Dr. Smith. You have a lot of choices of who to use for a Home Health Agency.  And there’s a few reasons why you should consider us first.

We have nurses who are board-certified specialists in your area of practice (diabetes, pain, cardiac,

Home Health Marketing

psychiatric, etc) …

Our specialists help patients achieve clinical outcomes in less time and less visits.  I can show you how we recently helped one of your patients achieve outcomes and discharge with 20% fewer visits than the national average...

When you’re choosing a home health provider remember that more patients improve their clinical outcomes with our Agency than any other HHA in this area……when can I follow up?”

Employing board-certified clinical nurse specialists will double your referrals with both physicians and hospital discharge planners.

home-health-butterflies

How to decide which specialty - identify opportunities

  • Are you rural or urban
  • Check what your competition is doing
  • Identify local Physician and Acute Care Practices that are specializing – they’ll be your target referral sources

 

The Pros of getting Nurses Board-Certified

A great recruitment and retention feature
▫ A way to reward loyal nurses
▫ You’ll double your referrals

The Cons...

Time-consuming - Getting nurses board-certified will take 6-8 months.
▫ Expensive
▫ Not all nurses can do it

The nurse's process of preparing for the exam

  • Go to http://www.nursecredentialing.org/ and select a specialty
  • Plan on 6-8 month study preparation
  • Prepare employment agreements, work schedule
  • Purchase Course Book, Study Guides
  • Join on-line Study Group
  • If necessary take review course


Keep in mind...

  • Cost $400-550 per exam, total cost to HHA $5-10K
  • Professional practice development: minimum of 1,000 practice hours in certification role
  • Renew every 5 years

 

The specialties...

  • Go to http://www.nursecredentialing.org/ and select a specialty
  • Gerontological CNS
  • Home Health CNS
  • Pediatric CNS
  • Public\Community Health CNS
  • Ambulatory Care Nursing
  • Cardiac Rehabilitation Nursing
  • Cardiac Vascular Nursing
  • Case Management Nursing
  • Community Health Nursing
  • Diabetes Management - Advanced
  • General Nursing Practice
  • Gerontological Nursing
  • High-Risk Perinatal Nursing
  • Home Health Nursing
  • Medical-Surgical Nursing
  • Pain Management
  • Pediatric Nursing
  • Perinatal Nursing
  • Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing
  • Public Health Nurse - Advanced

 

Patient Education: Managing Urinary Incontinence

OASIS Home Health Care: Teach Patients to Prevent Malnutrition