It’s the most precious asset we have . . . and arguably the most important gift that the senior living community has to give its residents.
By Susan Saldibar
It’s the most precious asset we have . . . time. And it’s arguably the most important gift that the senior living community has to give its residents. Not just more time, but more quality time.
Shouldn’t that gift be shared with the families of residents? And how about the hardworking staff?
I spoke recently with Darren Mathis, Founder and CEO of LincWare (a Senior Housing Forum partner). One of the primary goals of their Admit+ digital admissions platform is to give everyone — from staff to residents’ families to residents — their valuable time back. And Admit+ is proving its worth with community operators like Sunrise Senior Living, that has gone on record to say they have reduced the time it takes to complete admissions forms by 67%, saving them 26,000 staff hours per year.
I asked Darren about the numbers since they’re pretty impressive.
So, how do you run those calculations? Darren gave me an example that you’ll find interesting.
If an organization handles 1,000 admissions per year (240 work days) that’s 4 admissions per day. If we can conservatively save them 1 hour per admission, then we can save them 1,000 person-hours, which is 125 days of saved time. If they now have an extra 125 days for prospecting and doing revenue-generating tasks, that’s 500 new residents (4 x 125). That 500 residents times your revenue per resident is a really big number.
No kidding. And Darren’s calculations truly add up, given some of the recent numbers reported by operators who are using Admit+. I recall a recent case study LincWare did with SAL Management Group, an operator with assisted living communities throughout Utah and Arizona. Nate Boswell, co-founder of SAL had noted that by centralizing all documents, assigning accountability, automating the signature process and tracking progress, the admissions process that used to take days or weeks, now takes less than a half hour. Sunrise even reported that for out-of-state residents the financial commitment turnaround has dropped from three days to about ten minutes.
The time from a “yes” to entered into your EHR is valuable. Time to acknowledge that!
I have to wonder why communities continue to use old paper-based systems to handle a key set of processes. Darren tells me the problem with so many community operators is that they are not putting the proper value on the time spent by their sales and operations staff that they should. And they are ignoring the overall opportunity cost; the cost that goes beyond actually filling out forms. That’s the cost associated with chasing down paperwork, sending paperwork to various people inside and out of the organization, and fielding move-in related questions from the residents/family.
When you do the calculations, the time spent processing a move-in is considerable. Because you need to include all the activities from the time the resident says “Yes”, to the time they are entered into your EHR. “EDs tell me that using Admit+ is giving their sales reps their time back,” Darren says. “There is less rushing and chasing down paperwork and more time spent in high-value activities like prospecting and engaging with residents.”
Given the ever-increasing competitive environment, senior living operators face in the upcoming months and years, attracting and retaining talent and optimizing their time and talents is essential. Solutions like Admit+ that automate and organize a tedious set of processes is a great example of giving the gift of time back to your valuable team. And, I might add, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.
For more information about LincWare’s Admit+, please visit the website, email [email protected] or call 585-563-1670.
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