business people talking around a laptop

Did you know that when Home Care Pulse launched VANTAGE this month, they also released a benchmarking tool as part of the free VANTAGE Basic Account? This tool is free, and many home care business owners are already discovering the benefits of a VANTAGE Basic Account, including monthly Performance Benchmarking. Even still, there may be questions about this free tool and how it can positively impact your home care business. Let’s talk about a couple of the more common questions.

“I’m busy running my business, and I’m not sure I have time for something new. Why did Home Care Pulse start VANTAGE? And why should I open a VANTAGE Basic Account?”

We understand that you put your heart and soul into your home care business. Your dedication is crucial in this industry, and we thank you for all you do! As much as possible, we want to make your job easier and give you time to focus on the important things—both at work and in your personal life.

Over the past few months, you’ve probably heard Aaron Marcum, Home Care Pulse founder and CEO, say, “Our goal is to help you work ON your business, instead of IN your business.” As a former home care business owner himself, Aaron knows that this business can be all-consuming. You may find yourself spending your days taking care of clients and dedicating hours to managing everything that goes on in your business. You may even begin to spend less and less time with family and friends and more and more time at work. That’s no way to live.

We’ve created VANTAGE to help you work effectively and focus on what’s important. VANTAGE is designed to assist you with these tasks, and many more:

  • Setting business goals.
  • Tracking your monthly progress.
  • Benchmarking your results against the industry standard.
  • Learning from the experts and leaders within the industry.
  • Measuring, tracking and increasing client and caregiver satisfaction.
  • Creating a plan for change when necessary.
  • Highlighting success.
  • Achieving business growth as never before!

Benchmarking

“I thought Home Care Pulse just focused on client and caregiver satisfaction interviews. When did Home Care Pulse get involved with benchmarking?”

2014 Private Duty Benchmarking Study coverMany home care business owners are familiar with Home Care Pulse and our Quality Satisfaction Management Program, gathering and reporting client and caregiver satisfaction each month through live telephone interviews. But did you know that Home Care Pulse is also an expert at benchmarking for the home care industry? Every year since 2009, in partnership with the Home Care Association of America, we’ve been surveying the home care industry and publishing the Annual Private Duty Benchmarking Study.

We’ve seen the importance of benchmarking and now want to make that available to you on a monthly basis through VANTAGE, free. With this and many other VANTAGE features, we are putting our knowledge of the home care industry to work for you.

“I only care about the success of my own business. I don’t have time to focus on what other businesses are doing. Why should I participate in monthly Performance Benchmarking via my VANTAGE account?”

One of the best ways to improve your business is to compare yourself to others and learn from their successes and failures. Benchmarking helps you to know the industry standard. This will help you to recognize areas that need improvement or help you to know that you are on the right path, keeping pace with your competition.

Benchmarking can help you set realistic goals for your business. If you don’t know the industry standard, you may be setting goals for your company that are too high or too low. You could become discouraged because you can’t seem to accomplish your high goals, or you may be patting yourself on the back for accomplishing your goals each month, not realizing that they are too low, and as a result, your business isn’t growing like you want it to. In either situation, when you study the industry comparisons, you may realize that your goals were unrealistic. With benchmarking, you can be confident in setting aggressive, yet realistic, goals for your business.

Climbing-ladder-[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=Benchmarking can help you improve. Through benchmarking, you can see what other home care businesses are achieving and learn whether or not you are keeping up with the competition. If you find that your results are lower than others, this gives you the opportunity to formulate a plan, try new methods, create new strategies and/or make changes within your business. For example, if you discover that your client turnover rate is higher than the industry average, you may need to analyze the situation and put a concrete plan in place to increase client satisfaction and retention. Benchmarking helps you to focus on the specific areas within your business that need your attention.

Benchmarking can help you celebrate success. When your business is performing at or above the industry standard for certain benchmarks, you can celebrate your successes, thank your employees, and—even if just for a second—breathe a sigh of relief. It takes hard work to accomplish your goals. It’s nice to have concrete evidence that shows how much you’ve accomplished.

“I don’t have time to enter a lot of data into my VANTAGE account each month. How much time will it take?”

As we’ve mentioned above, we are here to make things easier for you. We don’t want you to spend extra time worrying about collecting extensive business data each month. Through VANTAGE, we have simplified your job—and we do some of the work for you!

The information we ask you to report each month is information that you should already be tracking for your business. You don’t have to spend time putting together any extra figures or reports. You simply need to enter your monthly Finance, Sales & Marketing, and Operations figures into your VANTAGE account—and we will do the rest of the calculations for you.

After the first month, entering your data becomes even simpler because we carry over your month-to-month historical information into the form, and unless you have changes to make in those areas, you don’t need to enter anything new. So, in the coming months, it will take you even less time to enter your monthly data into your VANTAGE account.

And once you’ve entered your monthly figures, we’ll calculate the benchmarks and help you track your month-to-month progress. You don’t need any other programs or software—you just need to log in to your VANTAGE account to measure your progress.

“My business data is private and needs to be protected. I especially don’t want my competitors to know how my business is doing. How secure is the information I enter into my VANTAGE account?”

Your business information is always kept private and secure in VANTAGE. Only users you authorize, with a username and password, have access to your account and your information. (So please keep your username and password private!) For benchmarking purposes, your information is included anonymously in overall calculations for the industry—and NO company names or identifying characteristics are used.

Also, the benchmarking feature will only show comparisons of 10 or more participating businesses. In other words, your competitors can’t narrow their search results to just you and them in an effort to see what you’re doing. There must be at least 10 businesses included in the benchmark in order for data to display—and most of the time, there are hundreds of businesses included.

“My franchise provides me with benchmarks. Why should I participate in benchmarking beyond that?”

Benchmarking within a franchise is an important way to measure the standard and track progress within the franchise. But it’s a limited perspective, and you may not have access to many benchmarks. VANTAGE Performance Benchmarking gives you an overview of the entire home care industry, including various franchises, with the following benchmarks available in a VANTAGE Basic Account:

In Finance:

  • Revenue
  • Billable hours (total)
  • Billable hours (hourly care)
  • Billable hours (live-in care)

In Sales & Marketing:

  • Client Growth Rates
  • Inquiry to Assessment Ratio
  • Assessment to Admission Ratio

In Operations:

  • Client Turnover Rate
  • Admission Comparison
  • Discharge Comparison

So, if you are member of a franchise, by all means, pay close attention to the benchmarks within your franchise and then turn to your VANTAGE account to track your progress against the entire industry.

VANTAGE was created for you and your home care business. If you haven’t signed up for your FREE VANTAGE Basic Account yet, sign up today and start reaping the benefits of benchmarking and all that VANTAGE has to offer.

Current Home Care Pulse customers are automatically signed up with a VANTAGE Basic Account.

Leave A Comment