One thing I try to do is to learn from my mistakes.  So, I’ll share some of my mistakes in this section called Lessons Learned so hopefully you can learn from them, too.  The lesson we’ll talk about today is about family members coming to take your resident out of the facility. This incident happened to me several years ago when I was first starting out. I was a new nursing home administrator working in one of my first...

Today, we have a special guest post from Shon over at www.eldercarelifesolutions.com: Did you know? Nursing Home 5-Star Rating Not Consistent   Much has been discussed about the new Medicare 5-Star Rating system in the recent months.  Although this is a great system to quickly look at how a facility ranks, it is filled with problems. Many people have posted comments about one nursing home having a 5-star rating being deplorable, while...

One little slick trick that helps market your facility while bringing your target market group straight into your facility – Senior Sundays!  The concept is this:  Pick the first Sunday of the month (or second Sunday, etc.) and open up Sunday lunches FREE to the public for any seniors age 55 and over. Many facilities would immediately be concerned over the cost.  Don’t be.  Most lunches run $3 – $4 food cost.  Even if...

Nursing home companies each have their own version of how a morning meeting is supposed to be run.  The format is usually put together by a clinician or by someone who just doesn’t have the right kind of exerience needed for this task.  As a result, I have found most morning meeting formats to be unacceptable and lacking in basic, necessary information. You also have some old school administrators who will tell you that no morning...

Is your physician putting you out of compliance by not visiting their patients timely?  It’s pretty common for nursing homes to have to remind their docs several times that it’s time to see their nursing home patients.  Many physicians get so busy with their own practices, they simply put the nursing home on the back burner. This is something you must keep on top of.  Usually, this task is assigned to the Medical Records...

Oftentimes, when a facility has had survey issues or turnover in leadership, employee morale also suffers.  One nice little tool that can drastically improve morale in your facility is the Thank You note. You should attempt to create an atmosphere of not just catching people doing something but catching people doing something right.  There are several ways to do this.  Obviously, one is to make rounds and observe.  Secondly, you can...

Here is a list I put together of our federal regulations or F-tags.  There are a couple of nice lists online already, but they haven’t been recently updated. These are current as of January 15, 2010. Click below for a .pdf: F-Tag List for Nursing Homes Good luck! Share this:FacebookShareStumbleUponDiggEmailRedditPrint

I typically don’t hire individuals with special schedule needs.  It never fails that when a facility is desperate for CNAs, housekeepers, dietary staff members, etc., we see many employees hired that have only special times and days that they can work.  Typically, you hear something like: “Well, I have class on Tuesday nights, so I can’t work Tuesdays.  And, I can’t work weekends because I have no one to watch my...

One of the tricks I came across in marketing nursing homes is to partner with other vendors and providers in the industry.  “Well, that’s not a big secret, Mark.  Everyone knows this,” you might think.  But, do you know how to utilize these relationships? For example, one of the areas my facilities specialize in (because I make sure they specialize in it.  I make sure we get tons of the education, the right supplies,...