How Home Health and In-Home Care can gain Referrals for Diabetic Patients

Sales representatives often ask questions about trying to attract patient types that they know their organization is great at treating.

Today, I got an email from a new salesperson who works for a large private duty organization. Johnny asked if I knew how he could capture more diabetic patients. He explained that the admission coordinator was a diabetic and that she really felt that she would be able to create a plan of care to support diabetic patients.

I suggested that he go to speak to the local Certified Diabetic Education Coordinators (CDE) that are having classes in his service area. Then I gave him a roleplay example to help him understand the very “words to say” to gain a diabetic referral.

Here is the role play that I provided Johnny to follow:

In this scenario, Mike is the Clinical Diabetic Educator (CDE), and I will play the role of the salesperson.

Cheryl has made an appt with the CDE to learn about his classes and how they support their students.

Cheryl: Hi, you must be Mike – good to see you – thank you for making time to meet with me.

Mike: Yes sure – how can I help?

Cheryl: As I shared on the phone I am interested in learning about your offerings – we have clients and a number of them have diabetes and I am interested in learning how I can better support them and how I can get them to you.

Mike: Ok yeah great – so I hold classes for folks with diabetes – and then one on ones with patients who are struggling to manage their diabetes. I hold them here at the office and the hospital. I would like to hold them in other places too, but it seems like there is never enough time.

Cheryl: Wow you really do a lot for the community – this is great. May I have a few brochures?

Mike: Absolutely, please let me give you at least 20.

Cheryl: I am curious – what do you see as some of the challenges that your patients face?

Mike: Oh, you know – they don’t eat well – they don’t check their blood sugar – they like to sit on the sofa and not move. Many of them are overweight and they don’t want to come to see me because they don’t want to get weighed. Folks report that they feel like they are going to “get in trouble”.

Cheryl: Wow – It sounds like they sure do need help at home. The good news is that my agency can help with all those issues. Our coordinator is a diabetic herself. She meets with each of the diabetic patients and builds a plan of care to support their diabetes, that’s why I wanted to meet with you. I know we are the company to service diabetic patients!

Mike: Yes, I know a little about home care services. However, most of my patients are on Medicare and you don’t take insurance

Cheryl: That’s true we do not take Medicare, but we still can help. We work with the patient and their families to build a plan of care to support them at home and that plan of care helps keep their diabetes in check. If folks don’t have the money to pay for a caregiver, we try to connect them with resources.

Mike: That’s nice. But I don’t know, I must think about how we might work together. I haven’t been referred to in-home care before. I just think about the cost for the patients. I am not comfortable talking about private pay expenses.

Cheryl: I can understand that and that’s exactly why I am here. To take that burden off your shoulders. How about if I come to one of your classes and as you go to break give me 5 minutes to share about my agency and what we do. Then we let the patients decide who would like to talk to me afterward.

Mike: Yeah, I like that better. Let’s look at a date – how about (insert date and times)

Cheryl: Perfect I will see you then. Before I go. One of the things that may not have thought about our patients that can’t get to your classes. Which patient has missed their appointments with you?

Mike: Oh I have a couple. We just keep calling them and rescheduling for another date.

Cheryl: How about if we offer a free in-home assessment to see if we can help get your patients here?

Mike: Oh – you would do that?

Cheryl: Yes, we would love to call them – ask if we could help and see where it takes us.

Mike: OK, I am open to that idea. I have one patient I would like you to connect. Let me get his info for you

Cheryl: Perfect – got it and I will let you know what they say – what’s your cell and I will text you

Mike: 333.333.3333

Cheryl: Great ok now you have mine too. Talk soon!

Now let’s review this roleplay.

First, I love to provide you with new referral sources (the CDE) to call on. I also love that this expands the CDE’s vision on how you can support private duty patients.

In the roleplay, Cheryl removes the stress of discussing costs, by offering to do the selling directly to the attendees.

In this example, the salesperson has access to direct consumer selling to the diabetic patient population.

I also love to show you how asking questions is more important than the rep telling the account about the agency.

Here in this example, the brochure vomiting is illuminated and replaced with specific information to differentiate the agency by just stating, “Our Coordinator is a diabetic herself”.

If you want to learn more about how you can sell by a diagnosis, we can help. We have a program called the Road Map To Referrals, 52 weeks of sales calls that expand the referral sources’ knowledge on whom to refer.

What to learn more? Simply email [email protected] to set up a time to discuss or simply go here and chose a time that works for you: https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales

Have an amazing day!

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

Co-Owner of Home Care Sales

PS: Here is a link to a diagnosis-specific selling process video done by my business partner Melanie Stover. Be sure to click the Like and Subscribe button while you are there!

Click HERE to see the video on YouTube.