COVID Testing for Sales & Marketing
Mitigation - the action of reducing the
severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.
As states around the country open up their economy and restrictions on citizens this week, it's time to talk seriously about mitigating the risk of COVID transmission for patients, facility residents, and facility employees. To NOT have a plan in place means you risk being shut out of certain referral sources...potentially forever.
Mitigating Risk To Patients or Clients by Caregivers
You should expect, and be ready to answer for this one in your sales efforts. How is your agency putting protocols in place to minimize the risk of transmission from caregiver to patient or client? As you can see by the chart below, the "safest" situation is a live in caregiver taking care of 1 client. After the 14 day incubation period is over, the risk of transmission is essentially zero providing the quarantine is maintained. The highest risk would be an inter disciplinary team of home health or hospice caregivers that are seeing a number of patients each week, thereby increasing the possibility of contracting and transmitting the virus. Please understand, this is all about perception by your referral sources and patients. Your agency might have a fool proof system of protection for patients, but this is on the minds of the people you work with. As such, you should be prepared in any sales messaging to make sure you allay their concerns.
Mitigating Risk to Referral Sources and Residents by Sales Personnel
As facilities begin to reopen, we don't expect an "all clear" where any sales rep who wants to walk through the front door gets a free pass. It will be a much more phased rollout than that. With that said, you also need to mitigate the possibility of one of your sales team transmitting the virus to anyone at your referral source's office. Again, the perceived risk may be higher than the actual, but this pandemic has put a scare into people and they will act and react accordingly. During last week's Home Care Marketing Accelerator 10 Week Webinar program, one agency reported that each of it's sales staff has their temperature taken 2x per day, and must report any COVID-19 symptoms and pull themselves from the field if they experience them. That's the kind of precautions that would go a long way to easing the concern of a building full of at risk seniors and the staff that cares for them. So, what is your plan? Be ready to document it and communicate it as we reenter the field over the next couple of weeks.
I would not at all be surprised to see facilities instituting their own safety protocols, and barring any agency who does not abide by them from the building. We might also see a "minimum safety protocol" instituted by a facility that your agency is expected to carry out (such as temperature checks, COVID or antibody test results, symptom reporting), failure to do so could also lead to denied access to the building.
The brave new world of home care sales has started and we're in the middle of it. Prepare now for the hard questions that are surely coming and we can more quickly and easily get back to the type of work that you do best.
You've only missed Week #1 of the Home Care Marketing Accelerator Program - COVID Edition. You can (and should) still join the remaining 9 weeks to be guided through this challenging time, and to make sure your agency has an edge to gaining back census and resuming your planned 2020 growth. Register here and join us for Week #2 this Wednesday at Noon EDT.
Good (and safe) Selling!
Michael Giudicissi
