The magazine released its annual “Inc. 500” and “Inc. 5000” lists in August.

Collectively, all small businesses and startups on the list amassed revenue of more than $206.2 billion in 2017 and revenue growth that topped out at 74,661%, according to Inc.

Home Health Care News caught up with leadership from three of the home care companies on the list about what strategies they used to drive growth and possible challenges ahead.

24Hr Home Care invested in partnerships

The partnerships 24Hr HomeCare has been involved in and continues to expand upon are a huge part of its success, Ryan Iwamoto, chief marketing officer and co-founder, told HHCN.

“We worked with Cedars-Sinai and did a pilot with them called Care Extenders, where we provided non-clinical caregivers to help extend the bandwidth of Cedars-Sinai’s ambulatory care management team,” Iwamoto said. “So, the thought was instead of investing more on hiring nurse practitioners or more clinical staff, can they leverage non-clinical caregivers to help them do home visits and check-ins with some of their high-risk patients.”

The pilot went well and now the program is permanent at Cedar-Sinai, Iwamoto added.

El Segundo, California-based 24Hr HomeCare is a private duty in-home care company that served about 5,000 private pay clients in 2017 across its offices in California, Arizona and Texas. The company offers companionship, transportation and meal preparation help and employed nearly 200 professionals in offices and 7,000 caregivers in 2017.

Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System. The system serves more than 1 million people each year in over 40 locations with more than 4,500 physicians and nurses.

24hr HomeCare also provides a service called RideWith24 that has driven growth for the company. It is a partnership with Uber and Lyft that connects seniors with the ridesharing apps through a phone call. The service has grown to a few thousand rides a month, Iwamoto said. Nearly 20 hospitals including UCLA Health and Cedars-Sinai have partnered with the company to transport patients home following a discharge.

24Hr HomeCare has endeavored to expand its footprint over the last few years too, Iwamoto said. The company launched four locations in Southern California in 2017, in order to create more density in the areas the company operates in.

24Hr HomeCare’s revenue was about $71.3 million in 2017. Its three-year growth mark is 85%, giving the company the No. 4,108 spot on the Inc. 5000 list. This is the company’s sixth time on the list, which puts the company in the Inc. Hall of Fame.

The people that work at the company are also a big part of growth, Iwamoto said.

“We have very motivated, competitive yet caring people that work on our team,” Iwamoto said. “We invested a lot in our training and development of not only our caregivers but our internal staff. We have partnered with experts in the field to provide different sorts of training, including Alzheimer’s and dementia training.”

In the future, 24Hr HomeCare plans to explore other services similar to RideWith24, further expand its footprint with more locations across current and new markets, and is looking to partner with Medicare Advantage plans.

Client satisfaction paramount at FirstLight Home Care

“Our whole premise was to set FirstLight apart with an added focus on client satisfaction measurement,” Jeff Bevis, CEO at FirstLight Home Care, told HHCN. “We measure client satisfaction in every office, every quarter.”

The company, as of Aug. 31, has 94.3% client satisfaction year to date across all its offices.

Cincinnati-based FirstLight Home Care is a home care company that provides 100,000 hours per week of companion, personal and dementia care services to nearly 4,800 clients across more than 254 locations in 34 states. The company employs nearly 4,700 caregivers.

FirstLight is also focused on caregiver retention in order to drive growth.

“We are very bullish on how we recruit, hire, train and retain caregivers so we are able to maintain a higher caregiver retention rate and lower caregiver turnover,” Bevis said. “Our turnover runs less than 20%. We see that as a direct correlation to our growth and our success.”

FirstLight Home Care’s revenue was about $6.6 million in 2017. Its three-year growth mark is 146%, giving the company the No. 2,827 spot on the Inc. 5000 list. This is the company’s fourth time on the list.

“Our technology has set us a part from day one, as well, but especially the last several years as we added new planks to our platform that help our offices maintain efficiency [and] productivity,” Bevis said. “We wanted to make sure we stayed ahead of the industry and be on the leading edge of the use of technology all across the home care industry. It has enabled us to better position ourselves for more third-party payer opportunities with long-term care insurance companies, VA, state Medicaid waivers — more non-traditional [payers] in the private duty, private pay sector.”

The company is tracking the growth for this year to be about 26%, Bevis said. FirstLight expects to double in size in the next three years and see growth in third-party payers, he added.

Virginia Home Care Services touts co-founder relationship 

Vienna, Virginia-based Virginia Home Care Services is a home care provider offering services like private duty, companion and respite care to 110 clients in Northern Virginia. The company employs about 150 staff members. Virginia Home Care Services hopes to expand by adding skilled care early next year.

Said Aliyev, president at Virginia Home Care Services, told HHCN that the relationship he has with his co-founder, Roustam Aliverdi, is a key piece of the company’s success.

“I think we complement each other in the way that we run the company and the things that we are good at,” Aliyev said. “This is the type of business where you need a partner. I think in most businesses, it’s difficult to do everything on your own, especially where it is a complicated business, which I think home care is. I think there has to be an individual that is a visionary and there has to be an individual that is an implementor.”

Aliverdi is the vice president of Virginia Home Care Services.

Virginia Home Care Services’ revenue was about $3.6 million in 2017. Its three-year growth mark is 142%, giving the company the No. 2,890 spot on the Inc. 5000 list. This is the company’s second time on the list.

“We do a lot of bootstrap marketing,” Aliyev added. “We try to get in front of case managers and other health care professionals is how we try to market our services. I think that has helped us quite a bit.”

Virginia Home Care Services also has unofficial partnerships with other home care companies, mainly ones that don’t offer the services they do, so they can recommend each other, Aliyev added.

One of the challenges to running a home care company is handling the regulation changes, Aliyev said. His company tries to be creative and adapt efficiently to the changes as they come.

Written by Kaitlyn Mattson

The post An Inside Look at 3 of the Fastest-Growing Home Care Providers appeared first on Home Health Care News.

The Ensign Group (NASDAQ: ENSG), parent company of Ensign, said a subsidiary of Cornerstone Healthcare, Ensign’s home health and hospice portfolio subsidiary, acquired Excell Home Care and Hospice and Excell Private Care Services in Oklahoma City. The deal was effective Nov. 1.

The move marks Ensign’s entry into Oklahoma. As a result, Cornerstone subsidiaries operate 20 home health operations, 22 hospice operations and four home care operations in 11 states.

Cornerstone President Daniel Walker reaffirmed that Cornerstone is seeking additional opportunities to acquire home health, hospice and home care operations across the U.S., whether they are struggling or well-performing.

Amedisys Adopts CellTrak’s For Personal Care Division

CellTrak Technologies and Amedisys expanded their 12-year relationship, with Amedisys’ Personal Care division to use CellTrak’s Care Delivery Management solution.

Amedisys’ Personal Care division provides personal care services to more than 15,000 seniors. The Care Delivery Management solution has previously been used by Amedisys’ Home Health division.

Amedisys’ providers will use the CellTrak mobile app to electronically verify visits, manage schedules, document visit data and automatically record timesheets and mileage. Agency office staff can use a connected desktop portal to track caregiver locations, monitor schedules and send secure messages.

24Hr HomeCare Teams Up with the American Red Cross 

24Hr HomeCare partnered with the American Red Cross to train their caregivers on emergency and disaster preparedness.

Through the American Red Cross PrepareU training program, the two organizations have trained 2,690 24Hr HomeCare Caregivers. The program covers creating an emergency kit, forming a plan and being informed.

Hospice Source Completes Its Fourth Acquisition

Hospice Source, a full-service, national medical equipment and respiratory therapy provider focused on hospice based in Carrollton, Texas, purchased Gainesville, Georgia-based Home Medical Professionals.

The move adds six service locations for Hospice Source and expands its geographical footprint into the greater Atlanta and Georgia markets.

Written by Maggie Flynn

The post Business Briefs: Ensign Group, Amedisys appeared first on Home Health Care News.

“It’s definitely a matter of planning ahead,” says David Allerby, CEO of 24Hr HomeCare, a provider of in-home care services including personal care, meal preparation, light housekeeping, medication reminders and transportation. “For the private pay side, home care organizations that plan and strategize well in advance will have the most success in the ever-changing landscape of home care.”

More than 440,000 health care workers in the state of California alone will see their pay go up gradually after Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation authorizing the path to $15 an hour by 2022. And in New York, home care and health care workers celebrated the state Legislature’s budget agreement to boost minimum wage after much pushback from the health care industry itself.

Home health and private duty providers across the country have kept their eyes on these states amid a nationwide movement for $15 minimum wages. The push for higher wages comes at the same time when some health care workers in Texas are jumping ship for higher paying jobs at McDonald’s.

Under the California legislation, the state’s $10 hourly wage will jump to $10.50 beginning in 2017 and $11 an hour in 2018. From there, workers will see a $1 increase annually until 2022.

To date, 24Hr HomeCare has prioritized compensating its caregivers above minimum wage, Allerby says, and he plans to ensure his more than 2,000 employees continue to be compensated fairly and competitively. But all of this must be done with minimum price fluctuation for the clients.

“Caregivers are truly the key to your success,” he says. “We have to provide to caregivers for the work they do, but keep care affordable for the vulnerable, as they deserve.”

On the other side of the country in New York, the Health Care Association of New York State estimated the uptick in wages could cost hospitals, nursing homes and home care providers $2.9 billion if implemented in 2021, according to Modern Healthcare.

“As an industry that is primarily funded by Medicaid, our ability to successfully implement the new minimum wage increase is largely dependent upon state and federal reimbursements,” Claudia J Hammar, President of the New York State Association of Health Care Providers (HCP), said in a statement. “Home care providers across the state already face critical cash flow shortages due to steeply rising labor costs, declining reimbursements and the challenges of a rapidly changing and increasingly complex health care system.”

HCP represents more than 350 home care agencies across New York, primarily providing long-term home care services for elderly, disabled and chronically ill residents.

If providers are proactive and bake the wage hike into budgets, they should find success as wages go up, particularly when it comes to out-of-pocket care, according to Allerby.

“The wage law can certainly be a challenge for the industry, but it’s one the industry can certainly overcome,” Allerby says.

The actions by the two states are part of an ongoing national push for $15 per hour by workers across several industries, including fast food, retail and home care.

More than one hundred home care workers are expected to take their ‘Fight for $15’ to Washington, D.C. on April 21 to urge lawmakers to address the issue. The protest will be held at a local home health agency, Health Management, Inc. (HMI), on Thursday. The agency is just one of several D.C.-based agencies named in recent lawsuits that allege wage theft.

Written by Kourtney Liepelt

“The Fight for $15 on 4/15” by The All-Nite Images is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The post Home Care Must ‘Plan Ahead’ For Minimum Wage Hikes appeared first on Home Health Care News.

Most Read

How One Home Care Agency is Partnering with Uber—24Hr HomeCare, a West Coast-based home health care agency serving thousands, has taken advantage of Uber’s latest initiative dubbed UberAssist, a program meant to help seniors get where they need to go in a safe and reliable manner. The goal is to reduce the likelihood of readmission.

Top 10 Largest Home Health Providers—LexisNexis released its 2015 Top 100 Home Health and Hospice Agencies Rankings, placing Kindred Healthcare at the top of the food chain with a 5.81% national market share. HHCN spoke with LexisNexis strategist Chris Golden about trends in home health and consolidation predictions.

Home Health Readmission Numbers Keep Getting Better—The Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation recently updated data that shows rehospitalization rates among Medicare patients from a home health setting are on the decline. Alliance Executive Director Teresa Lee cites more streamlined health care delivery as one factor accounting for the lower rates.

Congress Passes Bill to Increase Home Health Options—A measure meant to enable more older adults to stay at home as opposed to moving to a nursing home is making its way through Congress. More specifically, the legislation would allow providers to develop pilot programs to target people at risk of needing a nursing home and some individuals younger than 55, and it has now been sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

Weekend Reads

Utah Has No Plan to Deal with Growing Senior Population, Report Says—Seniors in Utah will account for about 13% of the state’s population by 2030, according to a recently released report, but officials say there’s no statewide plan in place to accommodate them. An article in The Salt Lake Tribune cites nutrition, transportation aid and caregiving as three critical areas on which the state needs to focus.

Written by Kourtney Liepelt

The post Editor’s Picks: One Agency’s Partnership With Uber appeared first on Home Health Care News.