How To Make Senior Living Your Home Care Agency’s Newest Revenue Stream

In home care, you might think that senior living is a competitor—and that’s true. But, there is a largely untapped opportunity for home care agencies like yours to work in partnership with them. 

Roughly 9.5 million Americans reside in some form of a senior living community, whether it’s a long-term post acute care facility or a temporary stay. Let’s go over how you can turn senior living into your next revenue stream. 

Level-up your referral relationships with your existing senior living contacts.

You’ve probably visited these people a few times to network and learn about their residents’ needs.

Start the conversation by running the idea by them. You can infuse what they’ve talked about into the conversation as well. 

Try something like this: “Hey, I remember when we talked a few months ago, you mentioned a few residents needing more one-on-one support than your CNAs can currently provide. What if we launched a program designed for a one-on-one caregiver service for your residents?”

Make it feel more like a collaborative partnership. This might not be a one time meeting, it might be a series of meetings before a fractional home care program takes shape for you and your agency. 

Level-up your operational infrastructure to support these unique programs.

Once you have enough interest from a community to make it worth putting some legs under a program, your team can start to execute the plan:

• Identify or recruit caregivers that have the right skills, availability, and live nearby.
• Determine a pricing structure that makes sense for residents.
• Make sure that your agency management system is equipped to support community care shifts and relevant features. 

Beyond that, make sure that you articulate this new launch to your team members who will be responsible for day-to-day management. From picking up the phone for a potential inquiry call for a community or a client looking to end service because they’re moving to a community, your team can be well-equipped to redirect their needs appropriately. 

Problems with fractional community care—and how you can combat and prevent them.

• Scheduling changes: Have defined shift times for caregivers to be present at the community so in the event of cancellations, they are still able to care for other clients from start to finish. 
• Caregiver delays/no-shows: This happens with any home care situation, whether it’s community care or not. Having a robust on-call infrastructure for caregivers and administrators is the best way to combat this. You might have an administrator or third-party answering service for the phones and a separate on-call caregiver who is on-deck, ready to work at a moment’s notice. 
• Short client visits: Build your programs around a shift, rather than individual client needs (as much as possible). Let’s say your caregiver is available from 7-3, for example, and a client needs a shower at 8. Build some buffer. Give them a window of 7-9 am for the shower. 

Moreover, stay in tune with client and caregiver needs as much as possible. If a caregiver is scheduled for 8 hours but over time, the needs evolve to mornings only, try to find them additional hours elsewhere or see if there are additional residents who might need care. 

It’s going to be a continual learning process, and things may change frequently. Just do your best to anticipate changes and adapt quickly. 

Master fractional home care with the right operational skill set and tools. 

Growing and scaling your home care agency can be an incredibly rewarding journey, especially when it’s paired with meaningful careers and client experiences for those you serve. 

By opening up the doors to senior living and fractional community care, your caregivers will have the chance to have one stop to make and care for multiple clients instead of shuffling from house to house on a tight crunch. They’ll appreciate the consistency and camaraderie, blending the best of being an individual contributor and working as part of a broader team.

With the right operational team and tools at your disposal, you have the potential to make this program as big as you want. How are you going to incorporate senior living into your agency’s growth plans? Let us know!