Home Care Providers Benefit from Pay-Per-Visit Prototype

The Current State of Home Care

In today's recovering, yet still volatile economy, residential care providers continue to seek ways to deliver quality care while increasing profits in a fiscally responsible manner.  Many companies have found that providing care in a pay-per-visit format has enhanced this effort.  As providers continue to evaluate their industry's best practices, it appears that the move towards a combination of salaried and per diem employees is not only enabling them to continue to provide quality care, but also maintain---and many times increase---their profits. 

Benefits of Per Diem Staff Delivering Non-Medical Home Care

Providers have found that the combination of employing salaried and per diem staff to deliver care has:

• Increased productivity of employees, enabling them to provide high quality care, which resulted in improved client surveys
• Trimmed unnecessary expenditures, which resulted in increased profits
• Streamlined office staff, while not sacrificing service delivery
• Allowed better tracking of length of visits and employee travel

Providers have also reported that employee involvement while testing this service delivery prototype was key---it enhanced morale because employees felt that their input was valued during the transition to the per diem model.  Employee benefits included:

• More opportunity for raises once unnecessary costs were reduced
• Increased work schedule flexibility (per diem nurses could opt for part-time status by reducing client visits)

Other providers, who have adopted a 70/30 split of salaried staff with a guaranteed visit quota, combined with per diem staff that go on extra weekly visits if necessary, have found that:

• Offering the salaried option attracts quality, qualified staff
• Also offering the per diem option to 30 percent of their employees allows them to be prepared for supply/demand fluctuations
• They have been able to achieve 95% of their guaranteed visit goals

As service delivery costs continue to rise and providers continue to seek ways to deliver optimum care in the most efficient manner possible, it is evident that offering this care using per diem staff combined with salaried staff will continue to increase. 

Although this prototype would need to be tailored to providers based on type of care and company size, there is still enough evidence to support the fact that it is worth the attempt---for the benefit of employees and those who receive needed in-home care from a reputable home care franchise.