What Can Providers Give to Patients, Pt 1

Admin

by Elizabeth E. Hogue, Esq. | Oct 9, 2025 | Admin, Legal, Marketing

by Elizabeth E. Hogue, Esq.

Providers Kickbacks

Keeping it Clean

Providers, including marketers, are tempted to give patients free items and services. But be careful! These activities may violate laws prohibiting providers that participate in state and federal health programs from giving free items and services to patients. Private insurers often impose the same prohibitions. This means that private duty agencies are not exempt from these fraud and abuse prohibitions if they participate in any state healthcare programs, such as Medicaid or Medicaid waiver programs, or accept payments from private insurers.

Provider Prohibitions

The government generally prohibits providers from giving free items and services to patients because it is concerned that such activities may:

Result in overutilization of services
Produce decisions concerning care that are not objective
Increase costs to the Medicare and Medicaid Programs and other state and federal healthcare programs

Consequences of Provider Kickbacks

Providers who violate prohibitions on what may be given to patients face criminal fines, civil money penalties, suspension or exclusion from the Medicare and Medicaid Programs and other state and federal healthcare programs, and jail time.

There are two applicable federal statutes:

The anti-kickback statute (AKS)
The civil monetary penalties law (CMPL)

Exceptions

The federal government says that providers have violated the federal False Claims Statute if referrals are obtained in a way that violates the AKS and providers submit claims for services provided to patients who were referred in violation of the AKS. Providers generally violate the False Claims Statute if they submit claims or cost reports to the government that include untrue information. When providers submit claims, they, according to enforcers, also promise that referrals were not received in ways that are prohibited. If referrals are received inappropriately by violating the anti-kickback statute, for example, then the claims are “false.” Giving free items or services to patients may also violate a federal statute: the civil money penalties law.

Promotions and Marketing

The CMPL prohibits providers from offering to give or actually giving items or services to patients or potential patients that are likely to influence receipt of services from particular providers. This prohibition is especially relevant to marketing activities. It applies to both direct and indirect promotional activities.

State-Specific Laws

Providers must also comply with applicable laws in all of the states in which they do business. State laws vary, of course, from state to state. Many states have anti-kickback statutes that are similar to the federal statute described above. State licensure statutes for physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, and other types of providers may also include prohibitions on giving free or discounted items or services to patients, especially when they may induce patients to receive potentially unnecessary services.

Final Thoughts

Although providers may have good intentions when they give free items or services to patients and potential patients, before they are acted upon such intentions must be subjected to consideration of the prohibitions described above.

This is part 1 of a two-part series. Look for part 2 next week.

# # #

Elizabeth Hogue is an attorney in private practice with extensive experience in health care. She represents clients across the U.S., including professional associations, managed care providers, hospitals, long-term care facilities, home health agencies, durable medical equipment companies, and hospices.

No portion of this material may be reproduced in any form without the advance written permission of the author.

Medicare Advantage Predatory Marketing

CMS

by Kristin Rowan | Aug 16, 2024 | CMS, Editorial, Marketing, Medicare Advantage, Regulatory

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Leading Associations Attempt to Curb Medicare Advantage Marketing Practices that Prey on the Unsuspecting

For some time now, we’ve been reporting on the marketing practices that Medicare Advantage uses to lure new members. And, it’s working, as more than 50% of eligible patients are now on Medicare Advantage plans. From federal lawsuits to fraud, to upcoding, Medicare Advantage has made headlines more often than almost any other topic in the industry in the last few years. A joint move last week by two national associations may bring the issue to a head once and for all.

The National PACE Association (NPA) and LeadingAge wrote to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) urging them to employ stricter oversight on Medicare Advantage marketing practices. The letter, dated July 25, 2024, cited the impact of these marketing tactics on adults served by Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). They called the marketing “aggressive and misleading” and called upon CMS to protect PACE beneficiaries from harm.

One of the selling points in the marketing of Medicare Advantage is the supplemental benefits. Medicare Advantage plans are allocated nearly $64 billion dollars to pay for dental, vision, gym memberships, and other benefits that are not available with traditional Medicare. However, the government has no idea where this money is going, who is using it, and what it’s for. Limited available data suggests that a very low number of Medicare Advantage enrollees are using these supplemental benefits. The rest of the money just sits with the payers at taxpayer expense.

The false promise of cash benefits draw even more of this population away from traditional Medicare and into Medicare Advantage plans. Cash benefits from MA plans are only available to dual eligible members. What they don’t tell you, though, is that if you are dual eligible and you switch from Medicare to Medicare Advantage, you are subject to prior authorization rules, care denials, and smaller networks, meaning you may lose your physician when you switch plans. Some of those cash benefits are restricted to use in particular stores. For example, Aetna restricts the use of cash benefits to stores owned by CVS Health. If there isn’t a CVS Health near you, the cash benefits can’t be used.

PACE Programs

Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) are typically traditional Medicare and Medicaid joint programs that provide medical and social services in home and community-based care settings. The programs cover prescriptions, dental care, emergency services, home care, meals services, primary care providers, nurses, social workers, and more. The program’s goal is to keep patients at home or in their communities and get the health care they need. There is no out-of-pocket costs to these programs for dual eligible members. Medicare only members have a monthly premium and prescription drug (Part D) premium. There are no additional deductibles or copayments for any service or level of care.

Bait and Switch

The marketing messages from Medicare Advantage are pulling PACE eligible members into dual MA and Medicaid plans, which significantly reduce the level of care, access to care, and continuity of care. The MA/Medicaid programs also have higher out-of-pocket costs to members, despite having no monthly premium. Research shows that Medicare Advantage is targeting healthier individuals who will use the provided benefits less often and that when Medicare Advantage patients become sicker, they switch back to traditional Medicare plans if they can.

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PACE LeadingAge MA Reform The financial and health implications of uninformed disenrollment from PACE to conventional MA plans are significant. The needs of PACE beneficiaries, most of whom have multiple complex medical conditions, cognitive or functional impairments – or all three – are not comprehensively addressed by MA plans. The loss of PACE services is harmful and, in some cases, can be life-threatening.

Katie Smith Sloan

president and CEO, LeadingAge

Dire Need for Change

In their letter to CMS, NPA and LeadingAge called for the following changes to be made:

Require MA plans to explain, clearly and without embellishment, all out-of-pocket costs and network/coverage limitations. using easy to understand terms
When a member disenrolls from a PACE program, additional steps should be taken to ensure the disenrollment is voluntary and that the member is fully informed of the differences in coverage before leaving the PACE program.
Increased leniency in re-enrolling in PACE programs after leaving a Medicare Advantage program by allowing re-enrollment mid-month.
Require MA brokers, when providing comparative benefit information of their current coverage (e.g., PACE) to an alternate MA plan, to also inform them, in plain language, if the new plan does not cover or coordinate their Medicaid benefits; and any benefits the individual would “lose” under the new plan (e.g., transportation to groceries).

Pace LeadingAge MA Reform We share CMS’ stated desire that people have access to accurate and complete information when they make health care choices. We have numerous examples of vulnerable seniors being induced to enroll in MA plans without being fully-informed of what they are giving up when they enroll.

Shawn Bloom

president and CEO, National PACE Association

The Rowan Report reached out to LeadingAge to see if CMS has responded to their letter.

Updates will be provided when we have them.

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Sources:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-05-30-medicare-advantage-64-billion-supplemental-benefits/

https://leadingage.org/associations-urge-tougher-enforcement-of-anti-predatory-medicare-advantage-marketing-practices/

When Social Media Goes Too Far

Admin

by Kristin Rowan | Jun 13, 2024 | Admin, Editorial, Marketing, Privacy and Security

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Access to Information: Pro & Con

The advent of social media has allowed millions upon millions of users worldwide to connect with distant friends and family, meet new people, and share information among followers. From Six Degrees in 1997 to BlueSky in 2023, social media has evolved over time. Some say social media has brought us closer together and created more opportunities for small business marketing and branding. Others argue it has replaced human interaction and created overuse of mobile devices, addictions to “likes”, and a host of fake news and propaganda. Whatever your particular outlook on social media, it’s probably here to stay.

Having a profile on a social media platform (or several as most people have), allows friends, family, and colleagues to connect quickly and easily. This easy access to user information can be great for social networking and branding. Recently, however, the social media platforms have started gathering the information from your profile to enhance the paid marketing campaigns you see in “Sponsored” posts. If you’ve never noticed it before, pay attention to how often a sponsored post appears on your social media feed that happens to match a recent browser search, email, or, scarily enough, conversation, you are part of.

Social Media Access to Outside Information

We’ve all seen the warning pop-ups on websites that read “This site uses cookies.” Cookies store your browser information and history, page visits, keyword searches, and other information. This information is accessible to other websites. This is why Amazon sends you an email for sale items you recently searched for, even if you didn’t search on Amazon. Most of us know we have the option to allow only necessary cookies and to opt out of everything else. However, most people rarely take this extra step. Rather than selecting from a list of allowable cookies, the default action is to “allow all.” We are just one click away from continuing our browsing, reading, or shopping.

PHI Information Accessed by Social Media

We accept that when we allow cookies, our information will be shared. However, when you share personal information with your doctor, you assume that information is not subject to the cookie preferences, even if the information is uploaded digitally. The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), in fact, requires that this information not be shared. Ron Prosky that the Palm Beach Health Network, the largest health care network in Palm Beach County, Florida, did just that. Palm Beach Health Network allegedly used Meta’s pixel code in their website, allowing Facebook to target patients with personalized ads based on their medical condition and other sensitive information.

Similar lawsuits alleged the same action against Atrium Health in North Carolina and against Kaiser Permanente, both in April of 2024. Kaiser Permanente claimed an “accidental breach” after knowingly using website trackers from Microsoft, Meta, and Google. Kaiser alleged they were unaware that the website trackers would send private information. Website trackers gather information that includes the user’s name and IP address. This information does not necessarily violate HIPAA laws. However, because the “cookies” attach to the IP address, they follow the user around the web. This makes it fairly easy for the data to infer a diagnosis or illness and use that to market to patients.

A Word of Caution for Agencies Using Tracking Data

If your website is set up to track users through partner codes from Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any other tech provider, you may be inadvertently sharing protected patient data with any of these companies.

If you are tracking landing page and link clicks through Google Analytics, you may be sharing sensitive data. Here is an easy to follow article to prevent sharing Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

A Word of Caution for all Social Media and Internet Users

The digital world is one in which we all live. Whether you are engaging with social media content, shopping in an app, or browsing online, protect your personal information.

Opt out of cookies whenever possible. If it’s not possible, limit access to only necessary cookies and don’t allow your information to be sold. Only use websites that are secure. Delete your browser history or use incognito mode as often as possible.

# # #

Navigating the Home Care Revolution

Admin

by Kristin Rowan | May 10, 2024 | Admin, Caring for the Caregiver, Clinical, Marketing, Recruitment & Retention, Regulatory

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

I was honored to have been a guest on Health Futures – Taking Stock in You Radio Show on Money Radio 1510 AM discussing navigating the home care revolution. Health Futures is hosted by HomeCare expert Bob Roth, owner of Cypress HomeCare Solutions. Cypress just celebrate its 30th anniversary last week and is the recipient of a Grant to Innovate within Medicaid in partnership with PocketRN and is the 2013 & 2018 winner of the BBB Torch Awards for Ethics. You can listen to the full radio show here. Below is the blog based on the show, written by the CEO of Strait Talk PR, Lauren Strait.

Home Care Revolution bob roth kristin rowan

by Lauren Strait, CEO Strait Talk PR

The Aging Population Tsunami

By 2050, the 85-year-old population in the United States is expected to quadruple. As this massive demographic shift unfolds, the already strained home care industry will face unprecedented challenges in meeting the escalating demand for quality care services.

Bob Roth, Managing Partner of Cypress HomeCare Solutions, recently had Kristin Rowan, of The Rowan Report on the radio show and podcast to discuss this trend and everything a consumer needs to know about the homecare industry and how it will affect them.

A Trusted Voice Amid Industry Upheaval

In the latest episode of “Health Futures, Taking Stock in You” hosted by Bob Roth of Cypress Homecare Solutions, Kristin Rowan, Owner and Editor of The Rowan Report, offered insights into how her publication is guiding the industry through this seismic transition.

The Rowan Report’s Unbiased Expertise

What began as a print magazine reviewing home health technology has evolved into a comprehensive digital hub covering regulatory updates, workforce solutions, marketing strategies, and groundbreaking innovations. Rowan emphasized the publication’s commitment to neutrality when evaluating new products and services.

“We do our best to remain as neutral as possible…that’s one of the things that Tim [her father and the founder] established early on in his relationships with tech providers.”

Empowering a Strained Workforce

With a redesigned website offering robust search capabilities, The Rowan Report curates resources to help agencies streamline operations and alleviate administrative burdens on overstretched staff. “The solution is not more people because they’re just not there,” Rowan stated. “But the solution is collaboration to better utilize the people that you have.”

The publication explores leveraging AI, voice technologies, automated claims processing, and outsourcing to reduce paperwork and maximize efficiency, enabling care professionals to concentrate on frontline patient care.

Preparing for the Age Wave

As the population ages, The Rowan Report recognizes the need to educate professionals and families on navigating the complexities of long-term care. By convening experts, the publication covers crucial topics like choosing providers, understanding Medicare/Medicaid, and planning for future care needs.

An Indispensable Industry Guide

With over 25 years of experience, The Rowan Report stands as an indispensable guide for the home care industry as it braces for the challenges and opportunities of an aging America. Access their insights at www.therowanreport.com.

# # #

Bob Roth is Managing Partner of Cypress HomeCare Solutions. He assisted in creating Cypress HomeCare Solutions with his family in 1994. Bob brings the depth and breadth of his nearly 36 years of consumer products, health care and technology experience to the home care trade. Over the years, Bob has received a number of awards. These include the January 2014 CEO of the Month and finalist for the 2015 Phoenix Business Journal’s Healthcare Heroes award. Cypress won the Better Business Bureau’s Business Ethics award in 2013 and 2018.

In March 2017, Arizona Governor Bob Ducey appointed Bob to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging. This was the first time in the Council’s 40 years that a home care/home health care agency owner/manager has served on the Council. Nationally, Bob serves on the Board of Directors for the Home Care Association of America (HCAOA). Locally, he serves on the Board of Directors for DUET Partners in Aging. Additionally, he is on the ambassador committee for Aging 2.0 – Phoenix Chapter. On September 11, 2019 Bob won the Home Health Care News Future Leader Award. The award recognizes up-and-coming leaders elevating the home health industry. When he’s not working, Bob enjoys spending time with his wife Susie, their three daughters, and playing golf, tennis, hiking and walking with Ruby and Lacey, our pet therapy dogs.

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Get Closer to Bonus Pay with the Net Promoter Score

Admin

by Kristin Rowan | Feb 7, 2024 | Admin, Marketing, Regulatory

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Medicare Advantage has multiple measures of success for payment bumps and bonuses. Rehospitalization rates has long been the most important measure of how well a care at home agency is performing, but there are additional measures that can help or hurt your agency. One that is gaining a lot of traction with MA and can impact your agency’s ability to survive is the overall patient experience. Measuring the patient experience can be subjective, but a great marketing tool to use is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a calculation of patient responses regarding their likelihood to recommend you to others. A NPS score of “0” means that, overall, your clients are not going to speak positively or negatively about you; there just isn’t anything outstanding enough to bother saying anything. Anything above zero is better than nothing, but 30 and above is ideal.

During January’s HomeCare 100 Winter Conference, Tim Craig moderated the panel, “The MA Member Experience and Why it Matters” with a panel of experts. He posed this question to the audience:

“How well do home care providers perform when it comes to delivering on patient experience?”

Rating care provider performance on a scale of 1-5, the responses during the panel were somewhat surprising

47% of those who responded rated the delivery on patient experience 3
43% said 4
6% responded 2
A mere 4% responded 5
There were no responses of 1

If we turn these answers into a Net Promoter Score, we get -6. If caregivers, administrators, and providers don’t believe we’re doing a good job, how can we expect our clients, patients, and families to be happy with the care they receive?

Statistics

Patient experience and complaint measures count higher toward star rating than they have before
CAHPS Scores have changed weight from 1.5 to 4 since 2021
Star Ratings Determine Bonus Eligibility and Amount – starts at 4 stars and above
Number of plans that have a 4.0 or higher star rating dropped from 64% to 43%
Disenrollment is on the rise from 10% in 2017 to 17% in 2021

Net Promoter Score

Glen Moller, CEO of Upward Health, whose net promoter score is a whopping 86, said:
“The Member Experience has always been important. What has changed is the way we manage it, given the implication of the CAHPS rating, you can’t be a 4 star without high CAHPS scores.” Moller improved his patient experience with internal surveys to get actionable intel and asking open-ended questions. Look at change and innovation and how that could be disruptive to members. Member experience is at the center of all the other measures. No matter what benefits you’re offering, embed member experience measures at every step of the process.

Because your star rating directly impacts your ability to receive bonuses and because experience-related metrics are increasingly weighted in determining star ratings, you should be looking at the member experience more closely in all of your process. You should also be measuring the member experience and looking at ways to improve it.

Ways to measure ME

• HHCAHPS
• Quality of Patient Care Ratings
• Word of Mouth
• Net Promoter Score
• Glassdoor
• YelpCalculating a Net Promoter Score can be challenging, especially when trying to get older or infirmed patients to answer a survey. For the most accurate NPS, send a single question survey to all of your current and past customers asking them to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or family member.” If you aren’t able to do this, you can still calculate a rough NPS using your other measures. You can use your Google and Yelp reviews with a simple formula: % of promoters – % of detractors = NPS. Three stars and below are detractors; four and five stars are promoters.The NPS score is more about comparative to the usual experience rather then the actual experience. A high score from a customer doesn’t necessarily meant it’s “great”, only that it’s much better than what they’re used to or what they expected.

The NPS is not the only measure of customer experience. To get the whole picture, use all the data you have to find out what interventions should be done and implement them. Whether the change is in training your staff, updating your scheduling process, using AI to help communicate directly with patients and families, or simply streamlining your website for a better user experience, you can improve your chances for higher ratings and bigger bonuses in a few easy steps.

I won’t often insert a shameless plug into an article, but if increasing patient satisfaction and member experience can help your agency survive the CMS pay cuts, and you need help with getting a NPS, understanding how to measure your patient experience, or getting online reviews, please contact me for more information. My marketing agency is happy to help get you started.

# # #

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report.homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

Home Care No Different From Hotels and Cellular, Customer Service Creates or Destroys Loyalty

Clinical

by Tim Rowan | Jan 31, 2024 | Clinical, Marketing

by Tim Rowan, Editor Emeritus

Counter-intuitive but true. Over-the-top customer service, intended to delight rather than merely satisfy, creates no more customer loyalty than very good customer service.

Speaking to a crowded room at last week’s Home Care 100, Ian Goddard, of Challenger Performance Optimization, Inc., raised a lot of eyebrows when he presented findings of an extensive research project that surveyed 125,000 customers and 5,000 customer service reps across a range of unrelated industries.

Lousy customer service discourages return customers.
Good customer service increases customer loyalty.
Great service leads to a high level of loyalty, but that is as high as it goes.

Over-the-top, he called it “delight service,” results in the same level of loyalty as great service.

Most people have heard the stories. Anyone who has taken a sales training class know about the Nordstrom’s employee who refunded money to a customer who was dissatisfied with a tire. She had bought the tire at that location when the building housed a tire store, before it was a Nordstrom’s.

Goddard told a similar one about a stuffed giraffe that was left behind at a Ritz-Carlton when the family left for the airport. At bedtime, the giraffe’s poor little owner was distraught. Dad called the hotel and soon began to receive photos of the giraffe “on vacation” but coming home soon. The enthusiastic employee took pictures of the giraffe sunning himself by the pool, having a drink at the cafe, and sleeping in a big comfortable bed. The little guy was at peace and slept well. The father flooded social media, singing the praises of Ritz-Carlton. “I’ll never stay anywhere else,” he proclaimed.

According to the Challenger survey, that enthusiasm does last for a while, but not forever. If that grateful dad’s next vacation is in a city without a Ritz-Carlton, or if there is another upscale hotel with a better price, loyalty takes a back seat. His social media campaign, of course, has a long-lasting ripple effect. Word of mouth today is online, not over the backyard fence.

Effortless Customer Service

The survey discovered that there is, however, one customer service experience that impacts loyalty more than any other, even more than service that delights a customer. “Your customers do not want to talk to you,” Goddard asserted. “The most important experience is the one that requires the least effort on the part of the customer. The customer service rep who acts as your advocate cuts through red tape, solves your problem, and takes steps to avoid you having to call again about the same thing. Advocacy is the characteristic of the rep who creates loyalty. Think of your own customer service experiences. If you have to work, or wait on hold, to get a problem solved or to fix something broken, you come away unhappy, meaning less loyal to the brand, even if your issue is finally resolved.

Out of eight personality types typically found in customer service positions, Goddard said, the “controller” type is the most effective. This is the agent who says, “Hold on, I’m going to take care of this for you,” and then comes back a few minutes later with, “all done, problem solved.”

Avoid the Next Service Issue

Goddard told the story of the customer with a broken vacuum cleaner belt. The service rep recognized the issue and told him, “Your replacement part is already on its way.” When he received two belts instead of one, he called back. She said, “We have learned that some customers have trouble installing the belt and they break it the first time. So, we send two, hoping they will learn what they did the first time and install it correctly with the second part.”

“Thinking forward like this vacuum cleaner company does cost a few extra cents with every replacement, but avoids a far more expensive service rep interaction in the future and cements customer satisfaction,” Goddard explained.

Effortless Service in Home Care

Ryan Iwamoto, owner of 24 Hour Home Care, interpreted this way of thinking about customer loyalty for our industry. Asking, “How do we get effortless experience into our organization?” he partnered with a company called Tethr that listens to and analyzes phone conversations. It then coaches the customer service person on ways to improve effectiveness, think like an advocate, and improve satisfaction. Realizing that his caregivers are much like customers, he uses Tethr for them as well.

From the start of the Tethr implementation to the present, advocacy on all calls increased from 26.3% to 34.1%. Difficult calls decreased from 8.3% to 7.9%. Average call length decreased from 4 minutes, 15 seconds to 3 minutes, 52 seconds. Customer Effortless Score, which was tracked at the company, region, office, and individual level, increased 39 percent. Phone calls tracked came from all customers: clients, caregivers, and referral sources.

Tim Rowan is a 30-year home care technology consultant who co-founded and served as Editor and principal writer of this publication for 25 years. He continues to occasionally contribute news and analysis articles under The Rowan Report’s new ownership. He also continues to work part-time as a Home Care recruiting and retention consultant. More information: RowanResources.com
Tim@RowanResources.com

What Home Health Agencies and Home Care Leaders Can Learn About Brands and Branding From the ‘Mayo Magic’

Admin

by Rowan Report | Dec 6, 2023 | Admin, Marketing

By Mary E. Maloney

What can you learn about brands and branding from an iconic company like the Mayo Clinic?

We daresay a lot

In this blog, we are going to first explore the “Mayo magic”—some key ideas about why Mayo Clinic has been named, again in 2023 as it has been so many times before, “among the best of the best” hospitals by U.S. News and World Report and listed as one of the “most trusted healthcare brands” by Beckers Hospital Review.

Then we will discuss the benefits of having a solid corporate brand like Mayo’s.

Finally, we will relate the branding principles established by this iconic corporate brand to why it is worthwhile to have a solid personal brand.

Successful Brands Are Built on Trust

Perhaps the most important lesson to take away from Mayo Clinic is that the best brands are built on trust.

A February 2023 Business Insider article titled, Mayo Clinic CEO: Here’s Why We’ve Been The Leading Brand in Medicine for 100 Years, asks Mayo CEO Dr. John Noseworthy how the clinic built its reputation and manages to stay at the top.’

“I think it all comes down to our core value, which is that the needs of the patient come first,”; Noseworthy says in the piece, “I know that might sound kind of trite in today’s world, but our staff is extraordinarily committed. If you spent a day here, and you grab(bed) anybody at the Mayo Clinic and ask(ed) them, ‘what’s the purpose of your work?’; they would say, ‘to meet the needs of our patients.'”

In other words, patients come to Mayo because they can—and do—trust their needs will be served.

The Best Brands Are Consistent

Based on the Mayo example, the best brands are consistent. In the Business Insider article, Noseworthy explains how the Mayo brand is expressed the same way across the organization.

“In my role, what I hear every day from patients and family members is that the minute they step onto a Mayo campus, whether it’s in Rochester, Minnesota; Scottsdale, Arizona; Florida; or in our large integrated health system, they immediately sense that there’s something different,” he says. “They feel it right from the first person they speak with, and it’s the physicians, it’s the science, it’s the engineers and technologists. It’s that patient focus and a relentless focus on quality. This goes all the way from the heart surgeons down to the cleaning staff.

Iconic Brands Stand for Something Significant

A few years back, a woman I know took her young daughter to Mayo Clinic’s Rochester, Minnesota, location for treatment for epilepsy. Ask her what words came to mind when she thinks about Mayo today, and she’ll say: “research, specialists, world-renowned.”

Top brands know what they stand for—and then they deliver on it. For Mayo, this is serving people first, and especially people experiencing special health concerns.

“Founded more than a century ago by two brothers in the rural Midwest, the Mayo Clinic has built a world-renowned reputation as an exemplary network of clinics and hospitals that has become the preferred destination of patients with difficult-to-treat conditions,” reads the intro to a 2018 Q&A article published in Knowledge at Wharton, a business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“As people live longer and have multiple different chronic diseases, the need for … advanced services will be ever greater,” says Larry Jameson, EVP of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, in the article.

The Benefits of a Strong Niche Brand

Being as famous and respected as Mayo would certainly be nice for any brand. But what are the deeper business benefits of having a strong brand in the home health/home care industry?

Qualtrics suggests that strong brands can capture greater market share, accelerate new patient acquisition through online rates and word-of-mouth marketing, and increase loyalty amongst a highly competitive set.

Here are some specific examples:

Having a strong brand can help an organization appeal to underserved or growing segments.
Having a strong brand that truly resonates with consumers can translate to patients promoting your organization through online reviews and social media mentions.
Having a strong brand can boost communication and help to create moments that matter with those the organization serves.
Having a strong brand creates “stickiness” and can mitigate employee turnover and improve retention rates. When employees feel like they are connected to an organization that is on-purpose, they are more likely to stay and to influence a healthy work culture.

Applying the Key Principles of Iconic Brands to Personal Branding

So how do these ideas we’ve garnered from an iconic brand translate into your personal brand?

As we have seen, consistently delivering on a brand promise helps people decide to do business with a brand. They trust that brand to deliver for them. At the end of the day, people do business with people if they have a choice.

Personal branding can help you excavate your very own brand manifesto and develop ways to tell others about it consistently and authentically. Being mindful of personal branding will help you answer mission-critical questions as: “What is my brand promise?” and “How consistently am I delivering on it?”‘

Personal branding can not only help you as a leader clarify what you stand for but also affirm it until you feel it with conviction. And it can help you to effectively deliver the same message about it in any situation—whether that’s the proverbial elevator, in an all-staff meeting, or in the field.

Imagine what your business would be like when everyone, whether it’s in the first 90 days or tenured staff, “owns” what they stand for and it aligns fully with your company core values.

You as a leader can

drive your team’s success
negotiate win-wins
change fear to excitement
overcome imposter syndrome
succeed in those key first 90 days of a new leadership role
mitigate the impact of quiet quitting
lead in these times of uncertainty
take well-timed rests so you can recharge and tackle your next goal

Knowing your “why” will also give you peace of mind to pursue your next act if you are in transition (on deck). Having a brand manifesto as your true north guide will enable you to more rapidly achieve your next career milestone and build your best exit strategy.

Once you get clarity, conviction and the ability to talk about your personal brand, maybe you’ll find yourself ranking on the Home Care Pulse 2023 Best of Home Care Awards or as part of the Modern Healthcare Hall of Fame.

Finally, a heartfelt thanks to all the healthcare leaders out there who are leading with purpose, no matter how tough it gets. It speaks volumes about your personal brand. You inspire us.

# # #

An executive advisor, educator, speaker and author, Mary E. Maloney is the founder of Revealing Genius and the expert that accomplished leaders trust for positioning, messaging and brand strategy. A former CEO and CMO, Maloney guides healthcare C-suite leaders, founders and physicians to powerfully and strategically message their expertise and “why” so they lead with conviction and achieve their most coveted career goals.

©2023 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only.

editor@homecaretechreport.com

No Nurse Shortage Here

Admin

by Tim Rowan | Aug 16, 2023 | Admin, Caring for the Caregiver, Clinical, Marketing, Recruitment & Retention

by Tim Rowan, Editor

When Joseph Furtado, RN, COS-C, moved from one Phoenix-area Home Health agency to another earlier this year, he faced a seemingly insurmountable problem. The new place had dropped to a 600 census during the pandemic and got stuck there. Marketers had nurtured strong relationships with referring physicians, but the agency was turning away most of them for lack of nursing staff.

Over a span of 70 days, Furtado hired 60 nurses. As of our conversation this week, none of them have left.

Furtado, the Administrator at MD Home Health told us about his hiring philosophy that helped grow the company’s census to 1,000 and boost it to second largest in the area. “People want to work here because of the way we treat them,” he said. His plan includes several strategies:

Pay clinicians what they are worth:
- Free up funds for salaries by eliminating marketing positions
- Free up funds for salaries by reducing most training costs
- Reduce training costs by hiring only experienced nurses from other agencies who need little or no training
Treat clinicians like professionals:
- Center orientation days around presentations about company culture, not nuts and bolts of the job
- Include presentations by top employees
- Include presentations by actual patients, who talk about what the company has done for them
- Eliminate obligatory mass training sessions. Replace them with as-needed meetings with nurse supervisors, sometimes in a patient home, sometimes in a nearby coffee shop.
- The invitation is never “you need to stop doing this wrong” but “may I take you to lunch?”
- Adapt schedule and pay policy to accommodate the needs of the professional
- Replace minimum productivity requirement with mission-driven expectation and rewards
Replace marketers with a single visit from the administrator:
- We are the best, we will keep your patients out of the hospital, we will not turn away your referral
Constantly monitor Indeed and other online job sites:
- respond to new job seekers within seconds
- schedule same-day interviews when possible

Favorite Hiring Story

Furtado enjoys telling the story of his favorite hiring win. “I was a few minutes late to call a top-notch, experienced Home Health nurse who showed up on Indeed,” he began. “When I called her, she had just parked her car and was on her way into an interview appointment with another agency. Thinking fast, I said, ‘What do I have to say to stop you from walking in that door?’ She couldn’t believe I was asking her to do that; actually, I couldn’t believe I had said it either. I told her our agency was the best place to work in Arizona and she should get back in her car. I kept her on the phone and said, ‘Let me hear you start your car.’ Then ‘Let me hear you drive away.’ She drove straight to my office and I hired her.

Today, she is our Director of Nursing.

Productivity Without Mandate

He told us that he has heard criticism from peers at various conferences and other meetings for his lack of a visit-per-week requirement. “I use a point system,” he explained to us. “A one-hour visit is one point, an OASIS visit is two, and there are other points for driving distance and other factors. We ask for an average of five points per day, and we pay bonuses when they exceed that. We tell clinicians during an interview that we offer a generous base salary, but that he or she can earn 20 or 30 thousand more than that. By doing that, we achieve two things. We hire an enthusiastic clinician, and we have the luxury of not having to hang onto underperforming nurses out of desperation.

Next Up

Now that MD Home Health has a full clinical staff, Furtado plans to implement a medical scribe system, based on the concept taught to him by his Medicare reimbursement consultant, Michael McGowan, a former CMS OASIS instructor and founding owner of OperaCare. During an OASIS visit, the field nurse consults live on a speaker phone with a QA nurse in the office. There is no computer between the nurse and the patient, and the OASIS is complete, quality checked, and ready to be submitted that day.

“We will make it optional,” Furtado said. “If it works as well as it has for Michael’s other clients, our hope is that more and more OASIS nurses will opt in once they see their co-workers going home at the end of the day with all their documentation already complete.”

©2023 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Home Care Technology: The Rowan Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com