How Home Health Sales is Different from Traditional Sales: Part 2

In traditional sales, there is a sales development rep to call, an account executive to close, customer success to onboard, and  an account manager to manage. These folks prospect, build relationships, close deals, and ensure a seamless handoff to fulfillment or implementation teams. In home health sales, however, the model is different—and that difference has a significant impact on the way your organization operates.

Marketers Wear Multiple Hats

In home health, marketers take on the roles of:

• Sales Development Representatives (SDRs): Prospecting and building relationships with referral sources.
• Account Executives: Pitching the value of your agency’s services and asking for referrals.
• Account Managers: Nurturing long-term relationships with referral partners to ensure a steady flow of patients.

This makes your marketers uniquely skilled multitaskers. But once the referral is in their hands, the process doesn’t end—it moves to the intake team, where the referral is converted into care.

The Crucial Role of Intake Teams

In traditional sales, the person who closes the deal is often part of the sales team. In home health, this critical “closing” step—getting the patient scheduled for start of care (SOC)—is handed off to the intake team. This disconnect can create challenges if intake isn’t fully aligned with marketing efforts.

Let’s put it in perspective: Imagine a huge contract is on the table, offering hundreds of patients each quarter. Your marketers have worked tirelessly for months to build trust and secure referrals. Now, the final step—ensuring those referrals translate into admissions—is outside their control. Strange, right?

Some organizations try to solve this by having marketers handle intake as well. While this might seem efficient, it usually leads to:

• Burnout: Marketers bogged down in administrative tasks lose valuable time for selling.
• Missed Opportunities: Marketing efforts slow down, and potential referrals are left untapped.

Bridging the Gap: Marketing and Intake Alignment

So, how do you ensure your intake team is as invested in the sales process as your marketers? How do you align both teams to create a seamless experience for your referral sources and patients?

1. Get Everyone on the Same Page

The first step is breaking down silos. Marketing and intake teams can’t operate in vacuums or rely on separate systems. For example:

• Intake needs visibility into the accounts that marketers have spent months nurturing.
• Marketers need to know how referrals are progressing through intake to ensure timely follow-ups with referral sources.

Without this alignment, opportunities slip through the cracks, and referral sources feel neglected.

2. Move Beyond Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets may work for basic tracking, but they’re no match for the complexity of modern home health operations. Consider this scenario:

• Your marketer has been nurturing a referral source for three months.
• That source finally sends a referral, but intake doesn’t know it’s a high-priority account because the data lives in a disconnected spreadsheet.

The result? Delays, inefficiencies, and a dissatisfied referral source.

3. Implement a Robust Intake Management and CRM Solution

To bridge the gap between marketing and intake, your agency needs a centralized platform that allows both teams to work collaboratively. Here’s how a solution like ReferralLynx can help:

• Unified Systems: Eliminate silos by integrating intake and marketing processes into a single platform. Marketers and intake teams can track referrals, share updates, and communicate seamlessly.
• Real-Time Updates: Ensure marketers are notified immediately when referrals come in so they can follow up with referral sources to thank them and resolve missing information.
• Patient-Centric Tracking: Intake teams can access the details they need—such as patient demographics, insurance information, and referral source history—without sifting through spreadsheets.
• Improved Accountability: Both marketing and intake teams can see exactly where each referral stands, ensuring no opportunities are lost.
• Scalable Efficiency: By automating administrative tasks, marketers can focus on selling, and intake teams can focus on closing referrals effectively.

Final Thoughts

The handoff between marketing and intake in home health is a critical yet often overlooked part of the process. By aligning these teams and equipping them with the right tools, your agency can ensure a seamless experience for referral sources and patients alike.

With solutions like ReferralLynx, you can eliminate inefficiencies, foster collaboration, and create a streamlined process that turns referrals into long-term relationships. In home health, it’s not just about making the sale—it’s about delivering on the promise of care, every step of the way.