Guest blog post by Matthew Cappell, CEO, FHS SeniorCare Payment Solutions
The benefits to in-home care are undisputed: The ability to age in place where it’s most comfortable. The independence to choose when and what to eat, when and where to sleep, what activities to engage in, with whom you want to spend your time. Given the choice between remaining at home with assistance or a move to a nursing home or assisted living facility, the overwhelming majority – nearly 90% – would choose home.
So for home care agency owners, selling services should be a piece of cake, right? Unfortunately, there’s a major hurdle that needs to be overcome: cost. For many home care agencies, private duty services must be paid for with private funds, boiling down to: “Would you prefer to pay by check or credit card?” Although the average senior possesses assets in the range of $75,000, the average need for care will cost $138,000 – $250,000 or more.
But what if there were viable alternate payment options, that have either been unexplored or deemed too complicated to pursue?
Options such as long-term care insurance, Medicaid waivers, veterans’ benefits, and other third party payers often cover in-home care services, and yet it’s staggering to note how frequently these payment sources go untapped. The statistics speak volumes:
- There are currently about 7.3 million active long-term care insurance policies
- Yet only 3% are actually “on claim” (being utilized)
- The entire private duty home care industry is around $36 billion per year
- Yet there’s over $212 billion worth of value tied up in long-term care policies
- 52% of long-term care policies are being used for home care
- And those with long-term care insurance receive 35% more hours of care than those without
- Although 72% of families pay for private duty in-home care with their own funds
- The other 28% are able to receive funding from a third party payer
Clearly, helping families understand and utilize third party payment options will differentiate your agency as an advocate, showing you go above and beyond to care for your clients and their families.
There are a variety of marketing techniques to help families explore whether their loved one qualifies for additional benefits, and to tout that you can help them access those benefits. Several options include:
- Clearly state on your website that you accept long-term care insurance, or any other particular third party payment options (and to contact you to learn more).
- Designate a page on your website to outlining available payment options.
- Write and post educational blogs specific to available third party payers.
- Create a rack card or flyer that talks about how your agency helps clients navigate their payment options and act as an advocate for families, filing claims and following up.
The more an agency can take off a busy family member’s plate, the more attractive they’ll be. The challenge, then, becomes how to devote the necessary time to understanding and implementing these steps. The good news is: you don’t need to!
Partner with FHS SeniorCare Payment Solutions for help unlocking hidden benefits for families, benefit verification, claims filing, and follow-up, support for denials, short-pays and appeals, delivered by professionals who possess the expertise and persistence needed to navigate the convoluted third party payer process.
Then partner with corecubed for professional home care marketing tools, customized for your agency and created by industry experts with decades of experience in helping agencies grow and stand out from the crowd.
Increase your agency’s reputation for going above and beyond, while increasing your opportunity for growth, and most importantly, helping remove the barrier to in-home care and the time and financial burden for seniors and their families in your community. Contact the home care marketing experts at corecubed at 800.370.6580, and FHS SeniorCare Payment Solutions at 484-301-2805 or FHSBillings.com, to learn more.