November is National Diabetes Month

Each November, we take time to recognize National Diabetes Month. It’s the perfect time to help raise awareness of how your agency can help those with this disease and honor those who deal with it on a daily basis.

Diabetes is a serious disease that affects millions of Americans young and old alike, and a condition that home health and hospice caregivers deal with frequently. Diabetes affects the body’s ability to make or process insulin-requiring blood sugar levels to be checked continually.  Uncontrolled diabetes can cause eye, kidney and nerve damage, as well as double the risk for heart disease and stroke.

Controlling diabetes is an area where home health can contribute a great deal. Team nurses monitor patients’ vitals and blood sugar levels closely for improved disease management.  Better glucose regulation increases quality of life for older adults afflicted with diabetes.

Stay at the top of your referral network’s list this fall with an ample supply of our customized diabetes flyers and brochures for their patients. These marketing materials are designed to educate your patient community while promoting your agency and services.

There are several types of diabetes, which are listed below:

• Prediabetes is the condition when the blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be considered diabetes. The CDC estimates that 84 million Americans have this condition.

• Type 1 diabetes is the condition where the pancreas can no longer produce insulin. About 5% of diagnosed diabetics have Type 1.

• Type 2 diabetes is the condition where the pancreases cannot produce enough insulin or the body can not properly process it. This is the most common type of diabetes affecting 95% of those diagnosed.

• Gestational diabetes is an insulin deficiency condition that affects between 2% and 10% of pregnant women every year. Having this condition can increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes late in life.

Whether you know what type of diabetes you have or are trying to figure it out, our pain and symptom catalogs are a nice tool to keep track of it all. A preview of this product can be seen on our web store: https://www.tagwebstore.com/painsymptomlog.php

We offer a variety of materials specifically related to diabetes that you can always find on our web store: https://www.tagwebstore.com/diabetes.php

Home health agencies: Your CMS star rating is a great marketing tool

Competition is fierce in the home health care industry, and savvy consumers have more information than ever to help them decide which provider will be the best for their family. Are you doing all you can to help ensure patients and their physicians have easy access to your key outcomes scores to help nudge them along the way? Conveying this information is easier than ever now that CMS has two different star ratings to allow an at-a-glance look at what may some of the most credible data about your company.

Although the Quality of Patient Care Star Rating and the Home Health Patient Experience of Care Star Rating (HHCAHPS Survey star rating) are easily accessible on Medicare’s Home Health Compare webpage, patients and physicians rarely dig into the data to make their home health provider decisions.

Here are some ways you can call attention to your agency using your star ratings:

• Use your outcomes scores and star ratings to show referral sources just how much more effective you are than your competitors at caring for people living with certain conditions. TAG has created a line of Outcomes Brochures for Physicians that list the services you offer for a specific condition and your patient outcome scores compared to state and/or national averages in graph form. Our Outcomes Brochures for Seniors are a perfect companion piece to the brochure for physicians. These brochures educate seniors on their disease and the many benefits of enlisting your agency to help them manage it.

Patient Outcomes Brochures for Physicians

• Put your star rating on all your collateral and communications materials so the recipients know at a glance that you have been rated highly. It should always be included in your Marketing Brochures.

• When your agency does earn excellent ratings and scores, don’t forget to recognize the people who make it all possible: your staff. Send out a congratulatory note in your newsletter thanking them for their hard work.

• A good star rating is worth sharing. If you haven’t already sent a press release to tout your 4-star or 5-star rating, get ready to brag a little about your recognition with the next release of scores. Send a press release out to your community’s media outlets and mail an announcement to your community partners. Doing well is a big deal; make sure they know it.

• TAG has created logos for the CMS star ratings and can feature them prominently on any marketing and operations materials that we create for you.

CMS Star Rating Logos

Geriatric Care Management and Home Health

May is National Older Americans Month and a good time to promote Geriatric Care Management and the role it plays in helping seniors navigate complex health decisions. It’s not widely known that many home health agencies offer geriatric care management as part of their care services. A geriatric care manager is generally a licensed nurse or social worker who acts as a surrogate relative to advise patients and their caregivers on appropriate short and long-term care planning. They are especially helpful to seniors who do not have family close by.  Care managers routinely:

• Act as advocates

• Assist with decision making

• Evaluate short and long-term care needs

• Explain complex medical issues

• Coordinate care services

• Direct and supervise caregivers

• Assess insurance benefits

• Refer estate planners

• Communicate with long-distance family members

• Consult with physicians

Home health care provides seniors with a collaborative team approach to health care, to identify and execute care practices based on the changing needs of the patient. As the senior population continues to grow and the need for care managers increases, it’s more important than ever that home health agencies promote this area of service.

Make senior care your marketing focus throughout National Older Americans Month. Here are some ideas for promoting home health services for seniors in your community:

• Conduct classes on elder care at places of worship with large senior memberships. Start by explaining the basic areas where home health care services excel: geriatric care management, post-acute care, chronic illness care, functional disability therapies, palliative care.

• Partner with local insurance providers and estate planners to host lunch-and-learns at senior centers throughout your service area. Provide materials that outline your services and the convenience of receiving health care in the home. 

• Arrange a therapy dog visitation day with skilled service facilities in your area to provide some fur baby love to the staff and patients. Partner with volunteers from the Local Pet therapy provider in your area.

• Call on assisted living communities to promote how partnering with home health care can benefit their residents struggling with declining mobility and other chronic health conditions. Provide information on your occupational and physical therapy services and how they can help residents maintain their independence longer.

Visit TAGWebstore for your home health and hospice marketing and patient education materials.   

Pulmonary Rehabilitation Week is March 10 – 16

Promote Pulmonary Rehabilitation throughout the month of March! Highlight the role home health can play in improving outcomes and reducing hospitalizations for patients who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.  

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is a therapy program designed to reduce symptoms and increase stamina for people with breathing problems. PR is an individualized care plan that works in tandem with other medical treatments to teach patients how better to manage their condition. A typical PR strategy may include:  

• Physical training

• Energy-conservation techniques

• Respiration coaching

• Meal planning

• Disease management procedures

Pulmonary rehabilitation is a long-term commitment that can be an effective treatment for: respiratory failure, pulmonary hypertension, interstitial lung disease, cystic fibrosis, and COPD. Patients with severely compromised health and those with limited mobility can find it difficult to participate in regular therapy sessions. That’s where having a team of specialists come to the patient is so helpful. Home health can provide the therapy people need without their leaving home.

Home health care teams, nurses, technicians, and specialists provide high level care for patients with obstructed breathing.

• Promote home care to the physicians in your service area. Remind your referral network that under Medicare patients are generally covered for most medically necessary COPD treatments including home health care ICD-10 codes J00-J99.

• Cold and Flu season may be winding down, but the local walk-in clinics are still busy treating patients with respiratory illness. Call on these often-overlooked referral sources and distribute patient education materials about home health and COPD.

• Advocate lung health through your social media outlets with links to helpful resources.

Visit TAGwebstore.com for all your home health, private duty, and hospice print media.

National Epilepsy Awareness Month (NEAM)

November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month. It was established to educate the public on the facts about epilepsy, in hopes of dispelling some of the misconceptions surrounding the disease.

Epilepsy, the fourth most common neurological disease in America, is a disorder where periods of abnormal brain activity produce seizures. It is generally treated with anti-epileptic medications to regulate the electrical activity in the brain and minimize seizures. For most people there is no definable cause for their epilepsy, but there are some cases that can be traced to: 

• Genetic tendency

• Trauma as the result of a severe head injury

• Brain damage as a result of a tumor or stroke

• Infectious diseases like meningitis, AIDs, and viral encephalitis

• Prenatal injury such as infection in the mother, poor nutrition, or lack of oxygen.

• Other neurological disorders like autism or neurofibromatosis

Home Health Care providers routinely care for patients recovering from stroke and other debilitating brain conditions. Contact your referral network next month to remind them of your agency’s patient outcomes and the important role Home Health can provide those struggling with frequent seizures.

Living with epilepsy can make a person feel as if they have no control over their life. Home health assists patients to manage their condition by carefully documenting their symptoms, seizures, and outcomes. This information can be a valuable tool in refining seizure management.

Seizure management starts by avoiding known triggers. Some known epileptic triggers include:

• Sleep deprivation

• Alcohol and drug use

• Stress

• Drug interaction

• Certain foods

• Acute dehydration

• Extremely low blood sugar levels

During this month-long epilepsy awareness campaign, provide tips on what to do when someone is having a seizure on your social media sites:

Epilepsy Foundation – Adapting First Aid Plans: https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/seizure-first-aid-and-safety/adapting-first-aid-plans

CDC – Seizure First Aid: https://www.cdc.gov/epilepsy/about/first-aid.htm

Visit the Tag Web Store to procure your Home Care Flyers and other Home Health and Hospice marketing materials.