Get physician referrals through the practice manager
Physicians were the referral source on 26% of Medicare home health stays in 2024, and clinics on another 22%. Most of those patients never saw a hospital first. The doctor signs the order, but the practice manager or referral coordinator usually decides who gets the fax.
The referral most agencies miss
Most Medicare home health periods start in the community, not after a hospital stay. A patient tells their doctor they're falling, or their wounds aren't healing, or they can't manage their medications. The practice needs an agency that day.
Doctors rarely pick the agency themselves. A practice manager, nurse navigator, or referral coordinator keeps the list, sends the orders, and chases the paperwork. That's the person who needs to know you.
Practices also care about what happens after. An agency that sends clear updates, gets plans of care signed without nagging, and keeps patients out of the hospital is easy to keep sending to.
- Titles we target
- Practice Manager · Practice Administrator · Referral Coordinator · Nurse Navigator · Care Coordinator
- Where they work
- Primary care, geriatrics, cardiology, orthopedics, pulmonology, house call practices
- Best fit for
- Home healthHome careHospice
- Medicare home health stays referred by physicians and clinics, 2024
- 48%
- 2025 Home Health Chartbook, Exhibit 3.5
What they need from an agency
Your first conversations should make these clear. If one of them isn't true yet, fix it before outreach starts.
Easy orders
A clear way to send a referral and get the plan of care back for signature without five phone calls.
Updates that help
Short, useful notes when something changes. Not a stack of faxes nobody reads.
Specialty fit
Wound care, cardiac, diabetes, fall prevention. Tell them what your clinicians are good at.
Fewer ER trips
Practices in value-based contracts care about avoidable hospital visits. Say how you help.
What goes out from your profile
We write to the practice: its specialty, its size, and the person's role in it. The question is about where patients go when they need care at home.
First message · example
thanks for connecting. you ran operations at an orthopedic group before moving to geriatric primary care, and now you manage three offices with a mostly older patient panel. i run a home health agency here in Phoenix. when one of your providers sees a patient who is struggling at home, is there an agency your team usually sends them to?
Follow-up · 3 days later
no rush. if your team ever wants another option for patients who need care at home, happy to be one.
Other referral partners we reach
- Hospital discharge plannersThe people who hand a patient the list of agencies before they leave the hospital.
- Case managers & social workersCase management leaders and medical social workers who handle the hardest discharges.
- Skilled nursing & rehabSocial services and admissions teams who send every short-term rehab patient home.
- Senior livingAssisted and independent living leaders whose residents need more help than the community provides.
- Hospice & palliativeHospice liaisons, intake teams, and palliative social workers who see families needing more help at home.
- Payers & care coordinationManaged care, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid waiver care coordinators who assign services at home.
- Elder law & care managersElder law attorneys and aging life care managers who advise families before care starts.
Be an agency the practice already knows
On the audit we count the physician practices in your service area who are on LinkedIn and pick the first ones to reach. Thirty minutes, free.