Thanks for checking back for the next installment in our series on how to approach and attract nursing homes to your practice! If you missed the previous installments, you can find them in prior blogs. Or email me and I'm happy to send them to your email! Now that our previous pieces have helped you get in the door at the nursing home, we can address what happens next. Once you're in front of the business office manager, what do you say? Where do you go from there? Do you do the synergy meeting? We find that it's good to get the office manager to set up a meeting with other key personnel in the room.
The goal of this meeting is to get a Synergy Meeting on the books. You will need to have each of the department heads there (the administrator, the admissions director, the finance director – or whatever they call their chief financial officer – the rehab director, and the social work manager). If you get those key people to attend, they can then share your information with their departments and it leverages your time with questions each department has. In that meeting, you should present what you know about Medicaid qualification (the ins and outs of the Medicaid system) and how this is useful for them. Here's where you can educate them on the great opportunities for residents that could also benefit nursing homes.
For example, one such benefit is the rehab stay at a nursing home, and how that’s a critical opportunity for residents to start that ball rolling in terms of the penalty period. A patient who needs to be readmitted to the nursing home later may be qualified on day one for Medicaid to pick up the tab. That helps the nursing home avoid the black hole where somebody is occupying a bed and the nursing home is not getting paid because the patient ran out of money. Those are important things for nursing homes to know about, and more importantly, that YOU can help them with this.
Another example: In some states, for instance, you can educate them on how a person could get in-home care and also get help in paying for that care through Community Medicaid. Community Medicaid is totally different from Medicaid that would pay for a nursing home stay. The veteran’s benefit can also be used to help pay for care in your home. You need to make sure the nursing homes know to share that with residents and the residents’ families. You could also talk about pooled trust for example, and how those can be used to help somebody pay for care in their home. And then tie this in with the six legal must-knows for any nursing home (located on the members section of the website).
Try to make the meeting a "Lunch & Learn" or a "Lunch & Law" setting. It’s a very easy, relaxed atmosphere, which is a great setting for just going through the points of what YOU can do for them and answer their questions. You just need to make a connection at the meeting. From there, you're sure to get a Nursing Home Synergy Meeting on the books with the right person.
We hope this information will help you build your nursing home business. Check back soon for our next post, which will deal with how to follow up after you've established the business relationship. And, if you have any questions at all in the meantime, please don't hesitate to email me at rdrotar@lawyerswithpurpose.com.
Roslyn Drotar, Coaching, Consulting & Implementation, Lawyers With Purpose
