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WHITE PAPER | PlayMaker Educational Series
Why NOW is the Time
for a Home Care-Specific
CRM
PlayMaker CRM
111 Southeast Parkway Court
Franklin, TN 37064
1.866.930.6847
www.PlayMakerCRM.com
Written by: Adam Bishop, MBA
President & Founder
WHITE PAPER | Why NOW is the Time for a Home Care-Specific CRM
Health care legislation — in particular tighter reimbursement rules and stricter
compliance laws — is forcing home care agencies to increase referral volume and
demand more efficiency from their sales teams while remaining within the guidelines of Stark II and its strict enforcement by OIG. And that’s just to maintain the
status quo. Now throw in an increasingly competitive marketplace and toss in
employee turnover and you have a recipe for market share loss and increased referral acquisition costs. To sustain market share, much less grow it, agencies must be
positioned with the best tools. That’s where customer relationship management
(CRM) comes into play.
Build better relationships
Imagine being able to log onto the Internet and within a few clicks being able to
view all the up-to-date activities of your sales representatives, review account information, referral information, and sales call activity and even monitor OIG and Stark
II compliance within your agency. A few clicks and you have total transparency.
Proper information management is critical to building relationships with customers,
and relationship building is critical to home care success. Home care executives
today have at their disposal all the means necessary to manage information and
strengthen relationships with customers thanks to innovative CRM tools. The newest CRM technologies are Internet based so the data is automatically upgraded,
fully supported (no need for an IT person) and can be integrated with existing
patient information management programs, McKesson, Cerner and Allscripts to
name just a few.
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Advances in CRM
solutions are
revolutionizing the
way home care
agencies manage
their sales processes.
Also, agencies must have a CRM in place if they are going to recruit and retain top
sales talent. Sales representatives will demand it as this efficiency has become a
standard in other health care sectors.
Give a high-touch experience
Advances in CRM solutions are revolutionizing the way home care agencies manage their sales processes. It may seem that there’s no place for high-tech in the
high-touch world of home health care. Just the opposite is true. Agencies that take
advantage of technology to track customer information create a more personal
experience with those customers. Referral sources will intuitively know that the
meaningful interactions an agency has with them will transfer to the patient.
Maximize market differentiation
No longer is simple contact management software enough. In this competitive
marketplace knowing just the names of your referral sources places agencies in
a precarious position. Automated reports are a necessity. Detailed personal and
professional profiles combined with expense allocations and referral volume enable
management to obtain precise ROIs for each referral source. In addition, a home
care-specific CRM should offer target market data so that agencies can quickly
identify and target top referring physicians and facilities in their service area.
Off-the-shelf CRM software works well for many traditional businesses looking to
manage the sales process. The unique needs of home health and hospice require
extensive customization and even with that the software still may fall short.
Eliminate brain drain
Agency owners invest an enormous amount of time and money to build their intellectual property. They train sales professionals to nurture contacts, input data, track
PlayMaker CRM
111 Southeast Parkway Court
Franklin, TN 37064
1.866.930.6847
www.PlayMakerCRM.com
WHITE PAPER | Why NOW is the Time for a Home Care-Specific CRM
information, and bring in referrals. All of that data can be lost through a computer
crash. Employee turnover has major consequences as well. Having the right CRM
in place mitigates most of those losses, enabling the agency to pick up where the
sales representative left off. It also allows for an easy transition and offsets some
of the consequences of staff turnover. With the help of this technology, the agency
is able to maintain account relationships and get the new sales rep on solid footing
quickly. After all, a new rep will immediately know all of the pertinent information
related to the account, such as what the A, B, and C accounts are, who makes
the referrals, what discharge planner to deal with, referral sources’ favorite foods,
favorite sports teams, special interests, office hours, best time to call, if they were
dissatisfied in the past and what made them dissatisfied.
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Safeguard your agency
Recent health care legislation’s focus on compliance makes it all the more
imperative that agencies automate their reporting. Home care agencies must be
vigilant about tracking the monetary and non-monetary expenditures they allocate
to referral sources and patients. An appropriate CRM solution guarantees that an
agency has an accurate representation of all costs and revenue associated with
each referral source and patient, allowing that agency to document proof of its
commitment to compliance.
Boost sales efficiency
For the sales representative, effective territory management is crucial in maintaining
a competitive edge in a highly saturated market. Reps must manage a large geographic territory with hundreds if not thousands of call points and decision-makers.
A CRM makes it easier to manage data, focus on key accounts and the big decision-makers, and track historical information within these customers.
A home care-specific CRM
A home care-specific CRM appeals to the needs of marketers, managers, and
clinicians. This personalization increases user adoption rates because the system
understands how home care works and home care staff in turn are better able to
understand the system. For the marketer, it’s a personal productivity instrument,
providing all the tools necessary to efficiently track referral source data, automate
tasks, manage accounts, and report expenses within OIG and Stark II parameters.
Managers are able to view the activities of sales representatives in real time and
easily conduct trend analysis and monthly, quarterly, and annual forecasting. Clinicians who may not have a strong technology background appreciate its ease-of-use
and industry-specific terminology.
Effective territory
management is
crucial in maintaining
a competitive edge
in a highly saturated
market.
Analytics for optimum success
Great companies have great systems running their business and great people
running their systems.
— Michael E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth
CRM refers to the processes and tools a company uses to manage customer
relationships in an organized way. Most home care agencies have always had
some sort of CRM in place, whether it be paper-based or software-based. The
downside: Information eventually became outdated, lost, stolen, damaged, or
deleted, leaving managers in a mess of paperwork and spreadsheets with virtually
PlayMaker CRM
111 Southeast Parkway Court
Franklin, TN 37064
1.866.930.6847
www.PlayMakerCRM.com
WHITE PAPER | Why NOW is the Time for a Home Care-Specific CRM
no way of tracking the history of an account. Staff turnover often meant the loss of
valuable information associated with accounts. That’s quickly changing thanks to
CRM applications that track, manage, and store data through a web portal. That
data stays with the agency long after the sales representative has left, saving that
agency time, money and accounts. With a CRM in place, sales reps have the structure and guidance they need to optimally perform their jobs, resulting in increased
job satisfaction and reduced sales force turnover.
Real-time information
Would you drive a car without a dashboard? Of course not, but many owners operate their business without one. Without a dashboard, you may as well be operating
your business blindly. A dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of an agency’s
performance and enables management to quickly obtain vital information and make
well-informed decisions.
Users of a home care-specific CRM can view referral source history in one place,
acquire a deep knowledge of accounts and contacts, link a contact with its parent
organization, and build relationships through account tiers. In short, they have more
tools to manage more accounts more effectively and efficiently.
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Great companies have
great systems running
their business and
great people running
their systems.
Michael E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth
Access anytime, anywhere
With a CRM that is web-based, users have secured, offsite access anywhere there
is an Internet connection, including the office, car, home, and even on premises of
the referral source. Sales reps can even access call notes on their phones so they
can quickly refresh themselves on where they left the call at the last time they visited, which shows the referral source that what they say has value. This once again
creates an interaction that is meaningful.
Home care executives are realizing that a CRM designed for their industry is the
ticket to increased efficiencies, better time management, marketing compliance,
and improved customer service to referral sources ­— ultimately leading to more
referrals and profits! PlayMaker CRM
111 Southeast Parkway Court
Franklin, TN 37064
1.866.930.6847
www.PlayMakerCRM.com
WHITE PAPER | Why NOW is the Time for a Home Care-Specific CRM
Page 5
Would you drive a car
without a dashboard?
Of course not,
but many owners
operate their business
without one.
PlayMaker CRM
111 Southeast Parkway Court
Franklin, TN 37064
1.866.930.6847
www.PlayMakerCRM.com