Recognizing Family Caregivers

November is National Family Caregivers Month. Make a commitment to honor the loving people who dedicate countless hours and resources caring for a chronically or terminally ill relative.

It’s not unheard of for a family member to care for an invalid loved one at home, but these days family caregivers are being asked to shoulder immense responsibilities while balancing work and home obligations. These caregivers are often unprepared to manage the complex nursing required for someone suffering with a serious chronic condition. The physical and emotional demands of long-term caregiving can lead to anxiety, depression, compromised health, and financial hardship. .

Home Health, Private Duty, and Hospice provide services that can assist family caregivers. Many of these services are eligible for Medicare and private insurance coverage with physician referral. Be sure your marketing resources inform families about the in-home services available to help with: skilled nursing, symptom management, pain management, nutritional support, wound care, diabetic care, IV therapy, respite care, companionship and homemaking services.

Here are some promotional ideas:

  • Call on Human Resource agencies in your service area about promoting your care services on their employee portals. Explain how your agency can help caregivers achieve better work-home balance. Ask them to link to your website for detailed information and a one-on-one assessment. 

  • Sponsor a family caregiver event in your community. Discuss long-term planning, care options, and home care services. Invite financial planners, lawyers, social workers, and the full spectrum of home health and private duty providers to speak.

  • Family caregivers usually accompany their loved ones to doctor visits so be sure to provide your referring physicians with information about your respite care services.

  • Add a link to the Caregiver Action Network’s Family Caregiver Story Project on your website to show your commitment to helping caregivers find the resources they need. Visitors can read about the experiences of other family caregivers and find condition specific information to help them in their care giving role.

Visit the TAG Web Store for all your Home Health, Private Duty, and Hospice marketing materials.

Help family caregivers take center stage this November

Our strongest partners in the care of our clients are their family caregivers at home. These loving people dedicate incalculable time and energy toward making sure their frail, ill or disabled family members get through their days with as much comfortable as possible.

November is National Family Caregivers Month. Make a commitment to honor the family caregivers who give so freely of themselves.

  • Approach local retailers and other businesses and ask about gaining their participation in offering coupons for free or discounted services for family caregivers in November. Compile this list in an agency flyer and distribute it to all your clients.
  • Market your services directly to family caregivers through a targeted postcard campaign. List services can help identify household income, gender and disease states. Because this information is all self-reported, it’s completely compliant. Promote your services directly to the family decision makers who are most in need of them. Need help getting started? Contact TAG Partners today at 866–232–6477.
  • A growing number of middle-aged Americans are finding themselves caring for both their aging parents AND their own children or grandchildren. Many do it while balancing careers as well. Approach the human resources departments of larger companies in your market and ask about speaking to their employees about the care options available for loved ones and how they can help them achieve better work-home balance. Be sure to have plenty of general marketing brochures and logo pens on hand to distribute. To add polish to your presentation and make it easier for attendees to find, consider setting up a pop-up banner with your logo and basic information. We can help.
  • Sponsor a family caregiver seminar in your community. Have informative discussions about long-term planning, care options, and home care services. Speakers can include financial planners, lawyers, geriatric care managers, social workers, and the full spectrum of home health and private duty providers. Include refreshments and invite professionals who can provide quick chair massages or manicures. Invite tons of vendors and make it an annual event. Don’t forget to alert the media.
  • Private duty agencies, call on specialty centers that serve elderly patients and offer a discounted package for respite care. Once these families are on service, it will be easier to sell them on more of the services your agency offers.
  • Being a family caregiver can be a lonely and isolating. Show caregivers in your community that they are not alone. Link to the Caregiver Action Network’s Family Caregiver Story Project on your website. Visitors can read about the experiences of other family caregivers or add their own. They can also find tons of resources there to help them in their caregiving role.

October Digest: Get more referrals with these great ideas

November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. As our nation’s senior population grows, more Americans will be living with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, about 5.4 million Americans already are living with the disease, making it the most common form of dementia.

  • Present a free class on staying mentally sharp at your area senior centers. The Exercise Your Brain class from the Health Matters Education Series offers an easy-to-follow presentation about ways to keep mentally fit to stave off problems in memory and thinking. Find it at www.tagwebstore.com/healthmatters-education-series.php.
  • After the class, leave behind puzzle books personalized to your agency to not only keep these potential clients mentally engaged, but to create broader awareness of your agency and educate about the benefits of home health, hospice or private duty care. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/puzzlebook.php.
  • Visit with local neurologists, geriatric psychiatrists and geriatricians to tell them about your Alzheimer’s program. Demonstrate your agency’s serious focus on working with Alzheimer’s patients by showing off your Alzheimer’s disease patient education guide. Find it at www.tagwebstore.com/patient-education-guides.php. Leave behind stacks of your Alzheimer’s disease information brochures in their waiting rooms. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/disease-information-brochures.php.

If you haven’t ordered personalized home care or hospice calendars yet, it’s time to stop waiting. Agency calendars are a durable, useful tool that your referral sources, prospects and patients will refer to all year long. This is one of the most cost effective and versatile tools you can have in your marketing toolbox – don’t gloss over this once-a-year opportunity to make sure your name, services and logo are font and center with everyone in your service area. It’s something they will WANT to see every day. Order by Oct. 31 and automatically get 25 free with every 100 calendars that you order.

When your staff isn’t in the home with a client, someone else usually is. It’s someone who does hour after hour of work with no expectation of pay or recognition. And it’s someone we are all grateful for: the family caregiver. November is National Family Caregivers Month. It’s a wonderful time to show family caregivers that what they’re doing matters far more than they know.

  • Visit caregiver support groups in your area and supply refreshments for a meeting in November. Ask to address the group and tell them about the benefits of home care, making sure to distribute your agency’s marketing brochures. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/marketing-brochures.php.
  • Distribute FAQ brochures to all the libraries and coffee shops in your area. Be sure to leave them at community counters wherever possible. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/faq-brochures.php.
  • Make the lives of your patients and their family caregivers easier by giving them a clear guide that shows them when their symptoms require a call to emergency services, to their home health nurse, or require no action at all. Zone flyers make this simple and are personalized to your agency. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/zone-flyer.php.
  • Set up a booth at community events this month and distribute agency materials, including disease information brochures personalized to your agency. These brochures educate on specific conditions and tell how home health, private duty or hospice care can help. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/disease-information-brochures.php.

 

October 2014: It’s time to get serious about home care

We have big news, blog readers! We want you to be the first to know about the great way we’re making home care marketing easier than ever. All of the printed products in our webstore (www.tagwebstore.com) are 30% OFF through the end of November*. Let’s talk about ways you can use them to boost your referrals, profits and community reputation.

But first, let’s discuss the one giveaway your agency can’t afford to skip this season: personalized hand sanitizer. 

  • Flu season is underway, and everyone has preventing illness on their minds – especially as viruses such as Ebola and enterovirus D-68 continue to make daily headlines. Give peace of mind to patients, prospects, referral sources and staff while also helping reinforce their mental connection with your agency by distributing Mist-a-Germ pocket spray at all your community engagements. Find it at https://www.tagwebstore.com/mistagerm.php. In a promotional offer valid through Oct. 31, Mist-a-Germ is available at a 10% discount with no set-up charges.

If you haven’t ordered personalized home care or hospice calendars yet, it’s time to stop waiting. Agency calendars are a durable, useful tool that your referral sources, prospects and patients will refer to all year long. This is one of the most cost effective and versatile tools you can have in your marketing toolbox – don’t gloss over this once-a-year opportunity to make sure your name, services and logo are font and center with everyone in your service area. It’s something they will WANT to see every day.

When our staff isn’t in the home with a client, someone else usually is. It’s someone who does hour after of work with no expectation of pay or recognition. And it’s someone we are all grateful for: the family caregiver. November is National Family Caregivers Month. It’s a wonderful time to show family caregivers that what they’re doing matters far more than they know.

  • Visit caregiver support groups in your area and supply refreshments for a meeting in November. Ask to address the group and tell them about the benefits of home care, making sure to distribute your agency’s marketing brochures. Find them at https://www.tagwebstore.com/marketing-brochures.php. (Don’t forget, all tri-fold brochures are buy 1 get 1 free through October. Minimum order or 250 per topic required. See all eligible brochures at https://www.tagwebstore.com/brochures.php.)
  • Distribute FAQ brochures to all the libraries and coffee shops in your area. Be sure to leave them at community counters wherever possible. Find them at https://www.tagwebstore.com/faq-brochures.php.
  • Make the lives of your patients and their family caregivers easier by giving them a clear guide that shows them when their symptoms require a call to emergency services, to their home health nurse, or require no action at all. Zone flyers make this simple and are personalized to your agency. Find them at https://www.tagwebstore.com/zone-flyer.php.
  • Set up a booth at community events this month and distribute agency materials, including disease information brochures personalized to your agency. These brochures educate on specific conditions and tell how home health, private duty or hospice care can help. Find them at https://www.tagwebstore.com/disease-information-brochures.php.

It’s here! National Home Care and Hospice Month is finally here! Well, almost. There are still a few weeks left before the celebrations start, but October is the time to kick your planning into high gear. November’s National Home Care and Hospice Month is a great month to not only celebrate the important work you do, but to draw positive community attention to your agency.

  • Use special National Home Care Month or National Hospice Month greeting cards, magnets and bookmarks to recognize the efforts of your employees, volunteers and referral partners – all the physicians, discharge planners, case managers, social workers and others who play a huge role in making your work possible. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/homecaremonth/index.php.
  • As you educate the community about what home care or hospice care is all about, use informative flip charts to ensure referral sources know when it is appropriate to refer a patient to your services. Guidelines for Home Health Admission for ICD-9 or ICD-10 are personalized to your agency and list the diagnosis codes for more than 200 common conditions. Find them at: https://www.tagwebstore.com/hhflipchart/ and https://www.tagwebstore.com/hhflipchart10/.  Guidelines for Hospice Flip Charts detail the admission guidelines for many common hospice diagnoses. Find them at www.tagwebstore.com/flipchart-hospice.php.
  • Demonstrate to referral sources that you are not only qualified, but have a proven record of assisting patients with a variety of conditions. Patient Outcomes Brochures for Physicians outline the services you offer per disease. They also provide real data about your quality outcomes and how they compare to your competitors. Find them at https://tagwebstore.com/patient-outcomes-physicians.php. Find accompanying brochures for patients at https://tagwebstore.com/patient-outcomes-senior.php.
  • Distribute FAQ brochures about Home Care, Hospice or Private Duty care at health fairs and community events in November as you educate about your services. Brochures include answers to commonly asked questions about coverage, payment, services, eligibility and more. Find them at https://tagwebstore.com/faq-brochures.php.