A skilled rehab facility is a place where patients can go once they are discharged from the hospital, but are not yet capable of going home and functioning on their own. Skilled rehab facilities provide nursing services and additional services such as physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy to help patients recover from their ailments so that they can eventually return home. Often times skilled rehab facilities are in conjunction with long term nursing homes.
Instructions
1. Define the target audience. Skilled rehab facilities will have several audiences that will all require different marketing plans and techniques. The elderly, hospital discharge planners or social workers and doctor's offices are going to be the top three audiences.
2. Promote your service directly to the elderly, by providing them with a free service. Set a day to visit the local senior center in your area. Take a nurse and do free blood pressure testing for a few hours. Pass out pamphlets and discuss the exceptional services your facility provides. When talking to this audience, focus on care and amenities by talking about your ratio of registered nurses (RN) to patients, how many single rooms you have versus double rooms, when your visiting hours are and if you have salon services available.
3. Inform hospital social workers about your services. Most patient referrals to your facility will come from the social workers or hospital discharge planners, who use a list of skilled rehab facilities to determine a plan while a patient is still hospitalized. Host a free continuing education (CE) event at your facility for social workers, who are required to have a certain number of these units per year; sometimes at a cost. Food can be provided at the event where the social workers can receive the requirement for free and you have the opportunity to pass out information or offer a tour of your skilled rehab facility.
4. Keep in touch with doctor offices and hospitals. Patients scheduled for procedures such as knee or hip replacement surgery, will often seek a referral from the doctor. Increase the chances of repeat business by following up on past referrals.
Pick the top five doctors who give referrals and send a thank-you note, edible arrangement along with a packet of information on your skilled rehab facility.
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