Home care caregiver turnover rate skyrocketed another 15% to 82% in 2018 according to Home Care Pulse’s benchmarking study. Interestingly, the study included nearly 700 home care providers that have mostly been in the industry for 10 or more years. Coupled with the fact that home health care will be the fastest growing industry in the United States for jobs over the next decade, it’s easy to see that recruitment and retention are the biggest challenges facing home care agencies! In a recent study, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that the annual growth rate for home health care services from 2014-2024 would be nearly 5%, the highest among ALL industries. That means 760,400 new jobs and significant competition for quality staff in every facet! Join SESCO Management Consultants to explore how to set the culture for your organization by identifying your agency’s culture of interlocking goals, roles, processes, values, and communication practices. These items must be consistently practiced to attract and retain quality employees. Next, we will address cultural and generational differences and how those play a key part in setting a standardized culture. Further, review how leadership can avoid hiring out of a reactive nature, especially given the national workforce shortage in the industry. Challenge your agency’s current screening and hiring practices and understand the true cost of caregiver turnover affecting your bottom line. Finally, develop and practice behavioral based interviewing which is critical for finding and retaining the best employees for your agency.

Senior Solutions Home Care founder and CEO Kunu Kaushal grew his Tennessee-based home care business from zero to $18+ million in nine years. During this session, learn his culture “secrets”, what makes a company’s culture great, how employee engagement can impact that culture, and hear the story of the ups, downs, and lessons learned along the way! Kunu will share how he managed to build an attractive work culture, recognize when it’s time to let someone go, how to manage accountability, and more. Following the morning break, learn how a great leadership team is built, including how to identify when it’s time to add to the team, ways to divide roles in order to maximize the team’s efficiency and key skill sets to identify when hiring.

The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) will go into effect January 1, 2020. This is the most massive change to the home care industry reimbursement structure since the introduction of the current Prospective Payment System (PPS) in October 2000. The new payment model dramatically impacts agency operations, processes, and performance. Agencies must develop and implement plans to successfully transition to PDGM. This workshop will discuss key areas, strategies, and processes in preparing an agency for PDGM. This workshop will have a focus on best episode management and process improvement practices including the referral, intake and scheduling processes, timely documentation, and physician and patient communication strategies, all of which are required to more tightly manage care within the shorter 30-day payment period. The change to a 30-day payment model will also bring significant back office changes specific to the claims processing and collections, which will be one emphasis of this workshop. A strong clinical episode management program is critical to ensure sustained, efficient, cost-effective, and uncompromised quality care delivery under the PDGM program! This workshop will bring emphasis to the fact that every discipline is valued the same and extra therapy visits does not equal higher payment. Lastly, this workshop will review the full blown emphasis of ICD-10 coding under PDGM and how agencies will have to monitor to ensure the specificity of coding for their patient care plans.

Effective clinical management in your office amidst the torments of the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) and Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) will be crucial for long-term stability and success. Managing a home health agency has never been easy, however the upcoming PDGM and RCD programs will make it feel that way. These programs create more obstacles for clinical supervisors who will now have to become SEAL and stealth like to navigate through. Success will require strong processes, diligent monitoring, and constant change management to continue to perfect the agency operations and outcomes. This program will provide the SEAL (Success Equals Always Learning) training and/or sharpen the skills necessary to become a clinical supervisor to overcome and effectively run a home health agency. More specifically, the speaker and participants will focus on three areas of management, which include episode and patient management, staff management, and office management.

Now more than ever will coding and OASIS be important. The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) clinical groupings and co-morbidities will be determined by your agency’s coding, and the functional limitations will be based on your OASIS responses. Learn how to take this to the next level and work scenarios related to common home health care scenarios. We will discuss when your agency should do other follow up or significant change in conditions, when you should discharge a patient to an inpatient facility versus transfer, and how to assist with or suggest appropriate utilization. Learn where Florida is scoring/trending based on 2017 rates, and how you can tell where your particular agency will fall. Join us for this full-day class to assist you in moving forward with PDGM.

This half-day workshop will dive into analyzing federal Anti-Kickback Statutes, identifying relationships in which these laws may be implicated, and learning to avoid risk! Legal expert Jacqueline Bain, Esq., will lead attendees through various scenarios to help you understand what these laws mean to your agency, including marketing agreements, medical director contracts, and more. Time will be spent exploring both the federal and state false claims laws, and attendees will be able to put it all together working through sample problems and analyses.

Home health providers in Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Texas are gearing up for implementation of the Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) in their states. During this presentation, Palmetto GBA’s Krisdee Foster will focus on the RCD program and selection process through the eService portal. She will discuss in detail the initial review and subsequent review choices. Additionally, Palmetto's Charles Canaan will wrap up the session with a review of the clinical side of the home health benefit and what Palmetto is looking for when submitting a pre-claim review.

This afternoon session has Kunu Kaushal walking you through simple fixes any agency can make to avoid the biggest mistake many home care agencies are making: selling their company. Learn how making these changes can allow you to increase operational efficiency, decrease costs, and increase the volume of clients so that you can love your agency again! Following the afternoon break, Kunu will share actual metrics and formulas that you can use to help you operate at peak performance. Areas covered will include financials, operations, staffing, and recruitment. This session is ideal for leaders ready for tips that go beyond just sales and marketing and this information can be applied to agencies with multiple business lines, large or small.