Diversify and Stabilize Revenue

Owners of home care agencies are well acquainted with the volatility of their revenue stream. They provide services to some of the frailest people in our population, including those at the very end of their lives. Coupled with the fact that a client may abruptly decide they want fewer hours of service or be hospitalized for an emergency, agency revenue can drop significantly at any time. When these things happen, the agency’s profits can be affected in other ways. Caregivers who suddenly lose their client assignment may lose their pay if not reassigned quickly. Many caregivers work for more than one agency because their bills do not change when their assignments are lost. The loss of caregivers can significantly affect the agency’s bottom line. 

In contrast, agencies that provide community-based home care services have far more stability in their revenue stream and consistent caregiver hours that are not affected when one client stops services. Community-based services are offered in apartments buildings, active adult communities, Continuing Care Retirement Communities, and more. In these settings, caregivers will be assigned to provide services to many clients during their working hours or shift. The durations are very short, ranging from 15 minutes to an hour. Some agencies offer visits as short as a few minutes as a safety check. Clients may have a few visits each week and others may have several visits every day. A sudden change in one client’s scheduled visits does not have tremendous impact on the caregivers’ schedule nor dramatically reduce the agency’s revenue.  

Community Based Home Care Offers Dependable Revenue

Home care agencies serving in communities can also have the advantage of being the community’s provider of choice to serve residents with traditional home care visits for residents needing longer visits. Some residents may choose to return to their community with home care services following a hospital stay, instead of going to rehab. Other residents may need an increase in service to remain in the community. Agencies that have the ability to provide both traditional hours of services and shorter visits not only give residents more choices, but they also have steady, recurring revenue with stable hours for their caregivers.  

In our experience, getting to know the community: their staff, amenities they offer, and the needs of their residents was essential for us to provide high quality, profitable community-based home care. We tailored our offerings accordingly to each community we served. Equally important to our success in communities was using the right technology to manage the complex scheduling and the various needs of many clients living in one place. Once we established these, we found that community-based services became a steady, recurring revenue source that features the short visits of community-based care and the long visits of traditional home care. Our staff became teammates working together to serve many clients. Our communities became our partners and our top referrals sources. Our retention rate for caregivers working in communities far exceeded that of traditional home care. Diversifying your revenue streams to include community-based care can be your steady, recurring source of income and a source for referrals. Home care agencies that offer this can also enjoy steady, predictable growth year after year.