Hospitals Demonstrate a Marketing Advantage in Home Health

May 16, 2011 - PRLog -- Brazzell Marketing Agency recently released a free report that quantifies the supposed hospital marketing advantage in home health care.  Their cost report derived data supports the assumption that hospitals have a marketing advantage over free-standing home health agencies.  The full, free report contains more essays on home health care marketing and is available online: http://brazzellmarketing.com/Home-Health-Cost-Reports.html

Through the freedom of information act, Brazzell Marketing Agency researchers collected three types of cost reports from Medicare: hospital, skilled nursing facility (SNF), and home health agency.  If a home health agency is owned entirely by a hospital or SNF, the agency can file its cost report as part of the facility’s cost report.  This was used to create a sample of home health cost reports that are 100% hospital owned and 100% SNF owned.  

The latest complete cost report set shows that the average census of hospital home health agencies is 964.  The average census from home health cost reports is 693.  The average census of skilled nursing cost reports was only 401.

To further examine the concept that hospital-based home health agencies get more patients, Brazzell Marketing Agency also sectioned out the top 20% of each category.  Researchers theorized that it may be more appropriate to only compare the most successful and established home health agencies with home health agencies owned by major institutions like hospitals.  The top 20% of hospital cost reports showed an annual home health census of 3,244 patients on average.   The top 20% of home health agency cost reports showed an average of 2,401 patients.  

Whether considering the market as a whole or just the top 20% of agencies in each category, hospital-based home health agencies seem to average 35% to 39% more patients.  Home health agencies based out of skilled nursing facilities demonstrated no such advantage.

The authors note that the hospital advantage is probably understated their methodology.  Many hospital affiliated home health agencies file separate cost reports.  These cost reports would have been included in their home health agency cost report totals, and the hospital affiliated agencies probably increased the average for home health agency cost reports.

The free report contains many other essays regarding home health management and home health marketing: http://brazzellmarketing.com/Home-Health-Cost-Reports.html

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Brazzell Marketing Agency specializes in Home Health Care Marketing, Physical Therapy Marketing, Hospice Marketing, and the marketing success of other referral-based health care providers. Check out our free Referral Doubling Strategy presentation.