10 Intake Mistakes That Cost Home Health Agencies Patients (and How to Fix Them)
Your marketing might be working. Your referrals might be coming in. But if intake is slow or unclear, you’ll still lose patients. We’ve seen agencies increase admissions without spending more simply by tightening intake. Here are 10 issues we see most often.
1. Slow response time
Speed wins. A quick response builds trust with the referral partner and the family.
Fix: set a standard for referral acknowledgment and first outreach.
2. No clear ownership
If nobody “owns” the referral, it sits.
Fix: assign one intake owner per referral from start to SOC.
3. Coverage confusion
If you can’t quickly confirm geography and staffing coverage, you lose.
Fix: maintain a weekly updated coverage map by zip and discipline.
4. Payer uncertainty
Families and referral sources hate ambiguity.
Fix: build a payer and eligibility checklist and use it every time.
5. Inconsistent communication
Referral partners want status updates, not silence.
Fix: standardize intake status messages.
6. Letting “pending” drag on
Pending becomes forgotten.
Fix: set a time cap for “pending” and escalate blockers quickly.
7. No “next step” clarity
If families don’t know what happens next, they drift.
Fix: give a 3 step “here’s what happens now” script.
8. No staffing visibility at intake
Intake promises what ops can’t deliver.
Fix: daily huddle between intake and scheduling.
9. Not tracking decline reasons
If you can’t see why you lose referrals, you can’t improve.
Fix: track reasons weekly and pick one to solve each month.
10. No SOC timeline standard
Referral partners want predictability.
Fix: publish a realistic SOC timeline and meet it consistently.
