We’ve seen a lot of innovation and change in the home care industry year over year, and thought it would be interesting to shed some light on a different caregiver payment model: pay-per-visit.
Learn all about what it is and if it would be a good fit for your home care agency.
Innovation and nimbleness are two key personality traits of a successful home care agency. The ability to attract caregivers and retain them long-term has unfortunately been a long-term challenge.
We started thinking about ways to offer a new arrangement that can incentivize caregivers to perform their best with as little stress as possible. But how do we work with the seasonality of work on both ends?
“I’ve found that the winter is often the peak time for inquiry calls and it picks up again in the summer when children are home from school, and parents have those added responsibilities, particularly affecting the sandwich generation,” shared Julio Barea, head of sales.
Do you notice a similar trend in your office?
In thinking about this new visit payment model, you can take control of your expenses, navigate the ebb and flow of hourly tides, and pay caregivers properly for the work they do.
Let’s say your average shift is 4 hours. Instead of thinking of it as a 4-hour increment, the 4 hours is now one visit unit. That becomes your caregiver’s per-visit pay rate.
If you’re paying caregivers $15 per hour, their per-visit rate becomes $60. In an ideal world, they will make $120 each day, up to $600 each week. This can help to set you up to offer daily pay or instant pay benefits and increase caregiver recruiting and retention.
Here’s a breakdown of pay-per-visit compensation models for your business:
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Pros |
Cons |
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Cost-Effectiveness
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Lack of Benefits Benefits and other incentives help attract a diverse talent pool, which is limited in a pay-per-visit model. |
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Increased Productivity When clients have all of their tasks completed, caregivers can head to their next client, to make the most out of their day. This enables you to care for more clients as efficiently as possible. |
Rushed Care When caregivers don’t feel the pressure of a clock, they might rush through care tasks and not pay close attention to changes in condition as they would in another compensation arrangement. |
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Less Admin Time Spend less time tracking caregivers down for shifts, and more on business development and quality assurance check-ins. |
With pay-per-visit, caregivers would only be paid for visits completed, so during times of lower client census, you don’t have to worry about paying for unnecessary time worked.
Salary working arrangements may often include the expectation of working overtime, promoting an unhealthy work-life balance, and could drive caregivers away. They provide a steady flow of income, but for a home care agency, it means paying for work even when there is less to do.
There are certain situations for a home care company when salary arrangements are better. “I’ve found that salary-based compensation is best for a general manager and office employees who are going to be on-call. This helps the business to maintain consistent expenses, especially when there are unforeseen challenges and a need to quickly pivot,” shared Barea.
“It’s important to find the right compensation arrangement for each position you hire for, and, when appropriate, to align compensation with key performance metrics for positions like sales managers or community liaisons.” Caregivers, on the other hand, need to be incentivized to provide thorough and comprehensive care to their clients. Knowing that they are paid per shift, will motivate them to provide quality care to as many clients as they can.
Have you ever thought about offering a pay-per-shift model in your agency? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
We are always eager to hear new ways that you are attracting caregivers or adding to your existing services, whether that’s a new service line or offering new technology systems that can promote quality of life.
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to innovate, look no further than CareTime as your evv system of choice. In addition to making billing easy with automated rules and an everything in one place dashboard, we can also help you incorporate the pay-per-visit model in your operations.