Understanding the Unique Financial Challenges of Home Care and Hospice Agencies

The costs of aging are more than just financial. Family members often bear considerable burdens as they share their loved ones’ struggles — and this is to say nothing of the challenges faced by the patients themselves. That’s why the financial side of home health care and hospice care should be as stress-free as possible.

This approach allows caregivers to focus on patient health. But there are some unique components to the financial side of these industries.

As you’ll see below, having the right financial services in place can vastly improve efficiency at these institutions, while enhancing the quality of patient care.

Unique Services

First, it’s important to remember that neither home care nor hospice represent a standardized product or service. Instead, these services are tailored to the unique needs of the individual, to the point that the services provided for each patient will rarely be the same.

Consider, for instance, the services that might be involved in hospice care alone:

• Physician care
• Nursing and medical services
• Medical treatments
• In-home aides and homemaker services
• Physical therapy services
• Occupational therapy services
• Speech-language pathology services
• Social services
• Dietary counseling
• Spiritual counseling and bereavement services
• Short-term inpatient care

This diverse array of professional services provided represent a unique challenge when it comes to financial management. Outsourcing your bookkeeping can be an important step to managing cash flow and keeping all these moving parts working in sync.

Unique Staffing

The diverse needs associated with restorative and palliative care present a unique challenge when it comes to staffing. And for those working with the terminally ill, fatigue is common.

According to the 2021 Hospice Report, over 60% of hospice clinicians experience burnout, making this the greatest non-pandemic-related challenge facing the industry today.

Hospice and home care companies can take better care of their staff by outsourcing payroll, ensuring a smoother process and eliminating the burden of critical administrative tasks on an already-overloaded staff.

Unique Technology

One of the challenges of home-based healthcare is that it requires the delivery and maintenance of relatively advanced equipment used for therapeutic services or as drug-delivery systems. Disabled or aging patients might also require equipment for basic mobility.

Maintaining this equipment can be costly, especially since technology tends to change rapidly. Home health providers will need proper revenue management so that they have the funds necessary to purchase and maintain advanced medical devices, as well as the staffing needed to distribute and install these devices.

Outsourcing your financial services may not address this need directly, but by optimizing your revenue cycle management, you’ll have better control of your cash flow, which will allow you to direct funds toward important technological needs.

Unique Sources of Revenue

How do hospice and home care companies get paid? Sometimes, it depends on the nature of the services provided.

As a general rule, Medicare will pay for most forms of in-home health care, though they will not pay for room and board at a residential facility. Other patients may rely on other forms of insurance, like a private insurer or Medicaid.

This presents another unique opportunity to optimize your health care company’s bookkeeping process, and ensure that bills are paid and that insurance claims are submitted to the appropriate agency.

Some private insurers may send benefits directly to the insured party, while others will send benefits to the health care provider. Having the right financial services to support you can ease the stress and confusion of this process, ensuring that your company’s revenue stream is smooth and efficient.

Unique Reporting

One of the greatest administrative challenges associated with home health services like hospice care are the unique reporting demands associated with the industry.

Every year, applicable providers must submit a Medicare Cost Report (MCR), based on requirements and regulations set by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS).

These reports contain such information as:

• Characteristics of the facility/company
• Company financial data
• Provider information
• Costs (both direct and indirect)
• Medicare settlement data

This information goes a bit beyond traditional bookkeeping needs, though your financial data will nonetheless play a vital role in the reporting process.

Helping the Helpers

At Knight Home Care Financial, we provide first-rate services for the financial side of home care and hospice agencies so that our clients can focus on what they do best: caring for their patients. Ease bookkeeping stress by partnering with Knight Home Care Financial.