Understand how to drive financial success by measuring and growing satisfaction among home care patients and families with these four approaches.
This guide will discuss what criteria make up patient and family satisfaction, then recommend 4 strategies to both measure and grow patient and family satisfaction.
Overview
Referrals are the largest revenue pipeline for most Home Care agencies. Keeping current patients and their families satisfied with services ensures the referral pipeline is maintained.
The last time patient satisfaction was measured industry-wide (2022), it was found that 89% of patients were satisfied with the home care services they received. The year prior (2021), 91% of patients were satisfied.
Measuring patient and family satisfaction on an agency level helps home care agencies identify key areas for improvement. Agencies can then adjust policies and procedures to ensure that patients are well cared for, and their families are always informed.
This guide will discuss what criteria make up patient and family satisfaction, then recommend 4 strategies to both measure and grow patient and family satisfaction.
Capturing Patient and Family Satisfaction
Home care naturally revolves around close attention to care and tailoring services to the patient’s needs. Caregivers and clinicians have the opportunity—and responsibility—to get to know their patients more personally than in a generalized healthcare setting. Patient satisfaction, therefore, must be understood through the following criteria:
1. Quality of Care
This aspect of patient satisfaction relies largely on the caregiver or clinician. Patients and their families expect the caregivers and clinicians who enter their home to be compassionate and competent. This requires timely delivery of services, accurate administration of treatments and medications, and often an empathetic ear when patients communicate their needs.
2. Communication
Communication must be unhindered between patients, families, healthcare professionals, and home care providers. Effective and prompt communication increases the patient’s trust and helps families feel supported through health decisions that must be made.
3. Patient Involvement
Encouraging patient engagement during services helps patients maintain independence and autonomy. Patients who are involved in decision-making about their care feel more satisfied with services rendered than those who are not.
4. Dependability
Service delivery, punctuality, and consistency all contribute to patient satisfaction. When service is optimized on all three counts, patients and their families feel that home care services they’re receiving is contributing to their well-being. Whereas, when services are inconsistent, not on time, and delivered poorly, patients and families will quickly find another home care agency that better meets their basic requirements.
4 Strategies to Measure and Grow Satisfaction
Quality of Care, Communication, Patient Involvement, and Dependability are the core categories home care agencies should look at to begin measuring patient satisfaction. Once the categories are understood, home care agencies can begin crafting strategies to both measure and grow satisfaction.
1. Surveys and Feedback
Structured surveys and feedback forms are key to measuring each category of patient satisfaction. Surveys and forms should be tailored to the services that agencies provide; but, most importantly, they should be offered regularly to patients and their families to create a categorized, systematic measure of satisfaction.
2. Check-Ins and Follow-Ups
Supervisors should regularly follow up on visits to ensure that patients are receiving the care they expect, and to promptly address any concerns patients communicate. Supervisors should also follow up and discuss their findings with caregivers and clinicians—preferably, before the next visit. Checking in with patients and following up on their feedback encourages communication and trust between patients and their home care providers.
3. Standardize Data Collection
Quality metrics and performance indicators should be established to objectively measure patient satisfaction over time. Some examples of objective metrics are readmission rates, caregiver-to-patient ratios, or adherence to care plans. Having an objective way to measure patient satisfaction beyond surveys and forms will allow agencies to make determinations on overall success of implemented strategies.
4. Utilize Software to Operate Efficiently
Agencies should use Home Care Software to achieve operational efficiency, starting with patient intake all the way through billing. This will help keep staff punctual and on task each visit, vastly improving patient satisfaction and outcomes. Patients and families will also be able to access portals, allowing patients to better engage in the care they receive, improving both patient and family satisfaction.
Conclusion
Improving upon satisfaction rates requires agencies to understand what qualities patients look for in a home care provider (namely, Quality of Care, Communication, Patient Involvement, and Dependability). Improving satisfaction also requires that agencies learn how to measure and track satisfaction of patients and their families over time utilizing surveys, supervisor check-ins, standardized data collection, and Integrated Home Care Software.
Home care agencies rely enormously on patient satisfaction to fill up their revenue and referral pipeline. Using these four strategies, agencies can grow patient and family satisfaction rates and improve their bottom line.
About CareVoyant
CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home based services, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy at Home.
CareVoyant functions – Intake, Authorization Management, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, eMAR/eTAR, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), Billing/AR, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, improve operational efficiency and agency bottom line.
For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.
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