Lack of, or inadequate, training used to be the number one complaint from both customers and employees—now it’s their highest point of satisfaction. See what changed by exploring the trends, tips, and strategies from the 2024 Activated Insights Benchmarking Report.

To mark the 15th Annual Edition of the 2024 Activated Insights (Formerly HCP) Benchmarking Report, we’re breaking down the key findings from each section to help get home-based care providers a head-start on turning benchmarking data into data-driven business decisions. 

Strategize your long-term and post-acute care training this year with these three tips. 

Tip #1: Invest in a Professional Training Program to See the Highest ROI 

Finding: Professional training programs produce the highest ROI and cost the least in the long run. 

Trend: While in-person training from a professional training vendor costs the most in employee acquisition at $470… In-person training from a professional training vendor generates the most revenue per caregiver employee at $17,071. Which is why 70.5% of all home-based care agencies who participated in the Benchmarking Report use a professional training program.  

Threat/Opportunity: However, while 61.6% of providers are billing solely on length of visit, only 29% of providers are billing for duration combined with level of skill. This data reveals an untapped market for additional revenue growth based on training you already have!

Data-Driven Strategy: Invest in a professional training program to enable your company to start billing for the skill level needed in addition to length of visit.

Tip #2: Establish a Clear Career Path to Retain Long-term Employees

Finding: Training care staff beyond compliance generates over a million dollars in additional annual revenue. 

Trend: Only 43.8% of home-based care staff and 55% of home health and hospice staff feel completely prepared to take care of new clients. That’s more than half of your employees feeling worried about working in the field. This may be because training for compliance has been the number one training priority for a couple of years now, according to our latest State of Training Report. As a result, annual care staff turnover rate has jumped 14% in the last two years to reach a total of almost 80%.   

Opportunity: According to the Benchmarking Report, the average home-based care provider offers 5 hours of orientation hours and 8 hours of ongoing training. Those who offer at least 8 orientation hours and 12 hours of ongoing training (about 7 hours additional training per employee) see an increase of $1,103,291 in revenue. 

Threat: However, while establishing a clear career path is one of the top strategies to retaining long-term employees, only 39.3% of providers have one. And according to a new data point in the Report, only 67% of agencies provide some type of continuing education annually. 

Data-Driven Strategy: Implement a clear career ladder within your company to increase staff recruitment and retention while improving customer satisfaction. 

Tip #3: Specialize Your Staff to Provide Patient-Centered Care

Finding: Those who specialize their staff to provide patient-centered care are seeing the highest employee and customer training satisfaction levels seen in years.  

Trend: According to your customers’ Overall Satisfaction Score in the 2024 Benchmarking Report, the ability of your employees ranked the highest in customer satisfaction this year. This may be because almost 80% of providers are taking a patient-centered approach to their care. 

Threat/Opportunity: 83.1% of businesses now offer specialty training with 96.4% offering dementia training to better personalize their training to the growing needs of the industry. Allowing your staff to specialize in their own interests increases employee satisfaction while enhancing patient-centered care. You’ll be able to take on more cases with specialized needs because you’ve trained your staff to take that patient-centered care approach.

Data-Driven Strategy: Offer specialty training courses that enable care staff to specialize in their own interests to differentiate your level of care from your competitors.

For more data-driven strategies like these, access the full 2024 Activated Insights Benchmarking Report (formerly the HCP Benchmarking Report).

Make More Data-Driven Business Decisions with Activated Insights

The best way to improve your home-based care training is with data-driven insights. Activated Insights offers many different solutions to help your company gain visibility into customer and employee satisfaction, recruitment tactics, and more. Explore our comprehensive solutions for home care companies like yours and discuss your needs with an Activated Insights expert today.