A hospice census is the number of patients a hospice cares for. Most industry professionals refer to average daily census (ADC), which is how many patients the facility cares for on average each day. To calculate ADC, divide the sum of the daily census for a given period by the number of days in that period. Your ADC is an important indicator of financial health for your hospice.
Strategies to Increase Hospice Census
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Easy Referral Process: Make the referral process easy and obstacle-free. Ensure you have standardized hospice referral processes. Use automated referral software that is standard in the industry. Also, automate as many referral processes as possible, such as sending out reminders for signatures. Removing obstacles ensures that physicians and their staff will be able to make referrals simply and easily, which will hopefully encourage them to send more referrals your way.
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Creating a Positive Environment: Establish a lovely climate for your occupants, staff, and guests. This will go far toward building and maintaining your office’s census management. It doesn’t have to cost a great many dollars. Here are only a couple of cheap thoughts for making a more positive initial feeling.
CMS Hospice Compare and Building a Strong Census
CMS created the new Hospice Compare website for patients and family members to support their ability to find and compare hospice providers based on quality indicators.
Building a strong census comes down to nursing home admissions but involves external factors. Facilities must balance staffing, reimbursement, and regulatory requirements, while also providing excellent care to residents. Though maintaining a high nursing home census is not easy, it is essential for facilities to maintain and protect their reimbursement payments and Medicare funding. Despite certain factors being beyond a facility’s control, there are several strategies to adopt in order to improve a nursing home census, thus making the facility more appealing.
Building a New Hospice and Administrative Support
Although the process of building a new hospice is often long, it is a financially rewarding venture with the potential to provide a high return on investment within the first few years if done right. As you build your hospice, you will need help to build a network of administrative and clinical support staff, as well as develop your marketing network to open channels of patient referrals for your hospice.