A therapist on your marketing team is a tiger in your tank: make rehab your marketing partner.

The facility we'll call Riverbend Nursing Home had enjoyed a steady stream of residents for several years. But suddenly, census was on the skids. The marketing department, which had grown comfortable with its collective feet up on the desk, snapped to attention with a gasp. Crisis! Something had to be done! "In a skilled nursing facility when the census is high, nobody markets," says Leo LaCroix, vice-president of sales for Aegis Therapies. "When the census falls, everyone is out there in a panic."

The truth is, marketing for census development is not an "as needed" endeavor; it is an ongoing strategy that must be integrated into the organization.

Before its empty beds became a crisis, Riverbend could have made its rehab department its strategic marketing partner. "A discussion of therapy's role as a marketing partner needs to be included when a facility contracts for therapy," says consultant Patty Jamison, president of Innisfree Healthcare Associates. She notes that she always looks at the rehab component whenever she works with a client on census development.

Faith Lessig Ott, marketing consultant at LW Consulting, Inc., agrees. "A lot of SNFs have no idea how much their rehab company can help them market," she says. "Facilities have overlooked this valuable source of success stories. There is no better sales tool."

The therapy department's contribution to marketing happens on several levels. The first level is a time commitment outside the therapy room. "It's important to designate a portion of time, maybe one call a week, when the head of the therapy department actually goes out and makes a call on a referral source with someone from the facility," says Lessig Ott. "We need to challenge the profession to do more of this. The name of the game today is getting out there and building those relationships."

Relationship building means actually putting leather to the pavement. Physicians and hospital therapists appreciate a clinical link--someone who talks their language. Vickie Shoopman, RN, CRRN, CCM, owner of Rx Healthcare Management and Consulting, LLC, is an ardent advocate of adding a therapist to the visiting marketing team of administrator and admission staff as they hit the streets. "I took my occupational therapist with me to a physician who did hand surgery to do an in-service," she says. "The dialogue that went back and forth between the therapist and the physician gave the doctor a better comfort level because he spoke directly to the clinician who would be taking care of his patients."

It helps if therapists are actually trained in customer service. "Our therapy department's rehab coordinator is our lead person on our therapy team in the building and is trained specifically in marketing," says Heidi Elliott, area director of Aegis Therapies in Minnesota. "The biggest request we get from our customers is for the coordinator to come along on joint site visits to the hospital to network with the hospital therapists and talk to physician groups or discharge planners."

The therapy director is uniquely qualified to act as a link with the hospital discharge planning team to help determine what kind of patients might be good candidates for skilled care. "We've found that when nursing homes are a little more proactive in that regard, they reap the rewards," says Patrick Sulzberger, managing consultant at BKD, a large certified public accounting and consulting firm. "If you rely on the hospital discharge process to place patients, you will only get whom they decide to send you when they decide to send them. Rehab can help in the education process by showing how the rehab company can move the patient through the continuum of care for the best outcomes. The nursing home can do more to control its own destiny to get the right patients at the right time."

The rehab department is also a fertile source of information on how well the facility cares for patients--and that is a powerful selling tool. "I think we miss the boat if rehab is not part of the marketing team," says Shoopman. "As a marketer, I would want to work with the rehab supervisor to find out the strengths of my rehab department and what we do best. Then I can go out and sell their expertise and outcomes. Both provider and rehab join together to show how the rehab company can be of value to the referral source."

The facility therapist also can educate the hospital physicians and therapy department on the scope of practice in a long-term care setting. "There are still doctors out there who don't realize that a nursing home can provide rehab seven days a week, or whatever is program appropriate," says Dolores Reidenbach, senior director of LW Consulting. "It's all about telling them what you can do."

Referral development is about developing relationships. "The networking is important because the hospital therapist will feel more comfortable sending patients to a facility where he or she knows the therapist," says Elliott. "The continuity of care increases patient satisfaction and gives the hospital therapist confidence that the long-term care therapist will follow through."

Tell Your Story With Outcomes Data

Outcomes are the proof of a facility's success story. Sliced and diced by patient type, length of stay, diagnosis, discharge to home, and referral source, outcomes data are the knock-'em-dead tool--and one that gives the facility a leg up on the competition. "A rehab company that can provide outcomes data is a great resource for the facility," says Shoopman. "Most rehab companies don't use outcomes to their full benefit."

No referral source will send patients to a facility simply because it has empty beds. "Case studies and testimonials are extremely important--better than any sales presentation you could ever do," says Reidenbach. "It's not just that your facility can do rehab. It's about a life story. The therapy company should be able to help the facility develop outcomes tracking, so it can say, for example, 'Our hip fracture patients, average age 88, are out of bed in 24 hours and ambulating 55 feet within the first 48 hours.' That's very exciting to orthopods."

Having such hard data to document claims of excellence makes it hard for a referral source to say no. "Our Rehabilitation Outcomes Measure [ROM] score allows us to go back to the referral source once a patient is discharged and quantify the specific gains the patient made," says Mike Beckwith, senior sales manager for Aegis Therapies. On the other side of the coin, aggregate ROM scores can show incoming patients how much they will improve based on the history of other patients in the program. "Traditionally, patients fear that when they enter a nursing home, they may never leave," says Beckwith. "We can show them what the average length of stay is, as well as, for example, what percentage of our normal hip fracture patients are discharged to home. This enhances the facility's image in the community and influences census."

Building census is a team effort. It requires participation from every member of the facility. "Rehab is part of it because we are part of the team," notes Violet Parker, director of customer care and account management for Aegis Therapies. "We represent the facility and we provide good outcomes. We train and encourage our therapists to go out and help market the facility. We can show how good we are, and you can't replace that kind of testimonial with a billboard."

Turning Outcomes Into Business

After rehab has told its story and shared successful outcomes, one step still remains. It's a crucial one that often is ignored. "Therapists can be great educators, but often they don't ask for the business," says Shoopman. She recommends that therapists tell their story and then come right to the point. For example, they might say: "What would prevent you from sending us your next orthopedic patient with a knee replacement?"

That crucial step is why Aegis's LaCroix includes training in "closing the sale" every time he does a sales-training presentation to a facility. "A lot of marketing people are stuck in the 'here-we-are-with-cookies-and-a-brochure' syndrome," he says. "That's different from really understanding the needs of the customer and then asking for the business."

Filling empty beds is about telling a compelling story of excellence. Adding the extra power of the rehab department to the marketing effort is, in the words of Exxon's famous slogan, like putting "a tiger in your tank"--it's the fuel that speeds the story. "Providers should look for a rehab company that asks the question, 'How can I help you in your occupancy crisis?'" says Shoopman. "That's a wow of a rehab company."

Take the Marketing Partner Quiz!

Marketing is a value-added service that all therapy departments should provide to a skilled facility to help build census. Use this quiz to determine the effectiveness of your therapy department as a marketing partner.

1. Are therapists willing to commit to helping my facility market our services?

__ YES

__ NO

2. Have the therapy director and staff therapists been trained in marketing techniques so they understand their role as partners in marketing?

__ YES

__ NO

3. Is the therapy company proactive in establishing relationships with physicians and hospitals?

__ YES

__ NO

4. Are therapists committed to accompanying the facility marketing team on calls to doctors, hospitals, and other referral sources?

__ YES

__ NO

5. Can I get DRG summary reports from the therapy department that show who the referring hospitals are, what DRGs are coming out of the hospitals, and how many discharges to nursing homes the hospitals have?

__ YES

__ NO

6. Does the therapy department provide outcomes information to take to referral sources to document our successes?

__ YES

__ NO

7. Can outcomes be categorized by program, patient type, and referral source so our presentation can be targeted to specific referral sources?

__ YES

__ NO

8. Will the therapy department help me generate sales brochures and other marketing materials to take to referral sources?

__ YES

__ NO

9. Can the therapy department assess community needs and tailor specialty programs to fit those needs?

__ YES

__ NO

10. Do therapists provide educational programs in the community, such as in-services in senior centers on safety, exercise, etc.?

__ YES

__ NO

Scoring: Count your "yes" answers.

Score Interpretation

10: Bingo! Gotta love that therapy department--it's bringing home the bacon!

7-9: OK, the machinery is in place, time for a little grease.

4-6: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak; time to ramp up participation.

0-3: Yikes, that therapy department needs a shot in the arm!