Newsletter Online Archive
Healthcare Market Resources provides in-depth, local-market data used to help shape strategy and tactics in home health and hospice.
March/April 2012
In this month’s feature, I discuss how to focus your sales efforts on promising prospects to successfully focus your sales efforts on the most promising prospects. Plus, I take a look at the trends in hospice length of stay between 2006 and 2010 in Metrics Matter.
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January/February 2012
In this month’s feature — “How to Plan a Successful Sales Territory for Home Health and Hospice” — we explore the most important things home health agencies and hospices need to consider in planning more productive sales territories. Plus, we share recent Healthcare Market Resources research dispelling the myth that a single hospital-affiliated home health agency monopolizes most hospitals’ inhouse referrals in Metrics Matter.
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November/December 2011
This month’s feature — “The New Sales Strategy Needed to Succeed in Home Care and Hospice Today” — discusses the shift in key decision makers for brand selection and/or preferred providers for home health and hospice services today and how that affects your sales strategy. Plus, we analyze which geographic provider communities will be most impacted if an episodes per patient cap is imposed in Metrics Matter.
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September/October 2011
Who are the key decision makers in home-care referral today? In this month’s feature, we discuss the changing roles of physicians in the home-care referral process and how you can use this information to increase referrals in your market. Plus, we take a look at the impact of new Medicare regulations for therapy-intensive episodes in Metrics Matter.
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July/August 2011
This month’s feature — How to Sell Your Agency’s Services to Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) — Phase I — discusses how home health agencies can position themselves as a preferred provider for accountable care organizations (ACOs). Plus, we analyze whether a multiyear calculation of the hospice cap will benefit hospices in Metrics Matter.
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May/June 2011
In this month’s feature — How to Use Market Segmentation to Differentiate Yourself from the Competition — we discuss specific and effective ways home health agencies can differentiate themselves from their competitors through market segmentation. Plus, you’ll find some interesting statistics in our Metrics Matter article. As the number of home health agencies has increased, so too has the rate of home health utilization. So if you build it, will they come?
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March/April 2011
In this month’s feature — Medicare Wastes Taxpayer Money with Comparative Billing Report for Hospices — we discuss why the new Medicare Comparative Billing Reports aren’t as relevant for hospices as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services intended. Plus, we analyze the factors that drove the growth in home health national revenue between 2007 and 2008 in Metrics Matter.
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January/February 2011
In this month’s feature — How to Use Readmission Rate Data to Create More Lucrative Opportunities with Managed Care Organizations — we provide a great way for home care agencies to get their fair share with MCOs. Plus, we analyze hospital discharges to self-care for the major diagnostic related groups (DRGs) to determine whether there is opportunity to change discharge patterns and ultimately reduce hospital readmissions in Metrics Matter.
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November/December 2010
In this month’s feature — 3 Ways to Increase Revenues in Home Health and Hospice — we provide three concepts for boosting revenue and discuss how each can be applied to home health and hospice. Plus, we take a look at the number of discharges per 1,000 Medicare enrollees to determine if individual hospitals really do have control over their readmission rates in Metrics Matter.
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September/October 2010
In this month’s feature — How to Capitalize on the Readmissions Fervor with Your Hospital — we provide a step-by-step Hospital Readmission Key Account Sales Planning Worksheet to help you prepare for sales meetings. Plus, we take a look at how many hospices nationally exceed 40% of discharges with length of stays of 180 days or more in Metrics Matter.
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July/August 2010
In this month’s feature, we take a look at the industry factors that indicate why hospices are more vulnerable to Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) compared to home health, as well as provide important actions hospices should take now to prepare for a RAC review. Plus, we analyze Medicare’s projections of non-routine supply payments to determine how close they came to the actual payments in Metrics Matter.
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May/June 2010
In this month’s feature, we show you how to determine whether diversification is the best way to grow your home health or hospice business. Plus, we discuss the incidence of diabetes, endocrine, and metabolic diagnoses in Medicare home health patients in Metrics Matter.
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March/April 2010
In this month’s feature, we discuss how to use three different quantitative methods of forecasting: simple moving average, weighted moving average, and trendlines. In addition, we look at the utilization of Medicare home health services by African Americans in Metrics Matter.
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January/February 2010
In this month’s feature, we discuss ways you can improve the management of Medicare patients subject to the Low Utilization Payment Adjustment (LUPA) to help maximize your organization’s profit margins and counter projected home health reimbursement reductions. In addition, we demonstrate the primary diagnoses groups that offer the greatest revenue potential on a per-patient basis in Metrics Matter.
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November/December 2009
In this month’s feature, we discuss new Medicare proposed reimbursement rules, plus 3 important changes you should consider in developing your key account strategy for 2010 and beyond. In addition, we use the metric Medicare Hospital Discharges to Home Care by Diagnostic Category to show you which discharge planners offer the most potential for referring cases to your home care in Metrics Matter.
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September/October 2009
In this month’s feature, we use Healthcare Market Resources data to identify and quantify a major source of abuse and waste in the current healthcare system — outlier payments made under the home health benefit. In addition, we discuss how to use days per discharge to measure the profitability of Medicare hospice patients in Metrics Matter.
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July/August 2009
In this month’s feature, we show you how to use benchmarking to help boost your organization’s performance. In addition, we discuss how you can use the Home Health Utilization metric to determine whether you should focus marketing efforts on “stealing” market share from competitors or finding new sources of patients in Metrics Matter.
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May/June 2009
Hospitals will no longer be reimbursed for Medicare patients with heart failure, pneumonia, or heart attack who are readmitted within 30 days of discharge for the same diagnosis. In this month’s feature, we discuss how this new Medicare ruling presents a great opportunity for agencies to grow their home health referrals. In addition, we take a look at hospice utilization rates at the state level in Metrics Matter, providing you with a frame of reference to evaluate your agency’s hospice utilization at the state and local levels.
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March/April 2009
Benchmarks are valuable tools that can help your home health agency or hospice accurately predict performance and determine new opportunities for growth. In this month’s feature, we discuss what makes a good benchmark and the type of elements that may influence a benchmark’s relevancy to your business. In addition, we examine the role hospital-based home health agencies play in the delivery of Medicare home health services by taking a look at the Medicare reimbursement for this type of agency on a statewide basis in Metrics Matter.
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January/February 2009
Hospice inpatient beds at hospitals or in a dedicated facility in your service area may provide significant opportunity for growth for your hospice. In this issue’s feature, we discuss how to project the need for hospice inpatient beds using internal hospital data, as well as provide a free download to help you quickly and easily perform the calculation. In addition, we take a look at the percentage of home care patient episodes that meet the criteria for the Low Utilization Payment Adjustment (LUPA) at the state level in Metrics Matter.
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November/December 2008
To succeed in today’s home health and hospice industries, providers will have to stop competing for market share and instead create new markets that offer unlimited growth potential. In this month’s feature article we discuss this strategy – introduced in the best-selling management book Blue Ocean Strategy – and provide specific ways agencies can create and capture new market opportunities. In addition, we help you evaluate how efficiently you are using your staff resources by looking at the number of visits per episode on a state level in Metrics Matter. Plus, check out our latest metric tip to help hospice providers increase their hospital referrals in Make the Data Work for You.
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September/October 2008
What is your agency’s market share of the Medicare home care referrals from key hospitals servicing your geographic area? In this month’s feature article, we provide a step-by-step calculation to help you determine your agency’s current market share of home care referrals for individual hospital accounts in your service area, plus the number of home care referrals you could potentially get. We also discuss the Medicare Home Health Penetration Rate in the U.S. at the state level and how knowing this metric can help you strategize the best way to grow your share of the home health market in Metrics Matter.
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July/August 2008
As you look for new strategies to grow your home health or hospice business, have you considered targeting the underserved population segments in your service area? In this month’s feature article, we provide a step-by-step method to identify the underserved segments in a market, as well as examples of ways to attract more patients from these segments. We also discuss the non-cancer hospice death rate – how it correlates with hospice penetration and what it means for market growth – in this issue’s Metrics Matter.
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May/June 2008
Are you aware of the market concentration in your home health or hospice market? In this issue’s feature article, we explain why it’s an important metric, as well as provide steps for evaluating your market’s concentration and ways to create opportunity in a concentrated market. We also show in Metrics Matter how the recert rate can be used to indicate the potential benefit from multi-episode patients, plus present a case study about identifying hospital discharges for home health services.
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March/April 2008
Market share is important to the overall success of home health and hospice providers. See our feature article to learn about the major methods used to determine market share and how this information can be used to help drive business growth. In this issue, we also present a case study on market expansion, as well as a metric that demonstrates the wide disparity that exists in hospice penetration among states and why this is important for increasing hospice admissions.
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January/February 2008
By understanding why large market share drives how successful your home health or hospice business can be, you can set your strategy on how to obtain a larger market share. See our feature article for more. In addition, we also present a metric and discussion of how you could double your referrals and a case study on assessing acquisition potential.
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