Are you wondering how to run an assisted living facility successfully? If YES, here are 20 tips to run an assisted living facility successfully.
If you own an assisted living facility, how you run the business is very essential to the success of the assisted living facility business.
An assisted living facility that is badly managed will run into bankruptcy which is why owners of businesses would always go the extra mile to ensure they manage the business productively.
The fact that an assisted living facility provides accommodation and personal care services for elderly people and other individuals who are unable to fully care for themselves due to ailment or disability, means that such facility can be boring and isolated if not properly managed.
Running an assisted living facility requires compassion and extra skills when compared to managing other types of businesses.
In this article, we will look at some proven and workable management techniques that are suitable for running an assisted living facility successfully.
20 Tips to Run an Assisted Living Facility Successfully
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Enforce Discipline
The first step when it comes to successfully manage an assisted living facility is to ensure that every employee carries out their job functions as clearly stipulated in the employee’s handbook. One of the major signs to know that a business is not being managed properly is a lack of discipline amongst employees.
You would realize that when discipline is not enforced, employees will handle assigned tasks with levity because they know that there is no consequence for their actions.
In order to successfully run your assisted living facility business, when any of your staff breaches company’s policies, you have to issue them a query, suspension, or even a termination of their appointment.
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Impose Team Spirit
Another successful way of running an assisted living facility is to impose team spirit among your employees; every member of the workforce should be able to work as one.
The acronym TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) truly fits into the basic requirement for effectively managing any business successfully. Just make sure you encourage any activity that will promote team spirit amongst your employees.
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Never Compromise Excellence
One major tip you need if indeed you want to successfully run an assisted living facility business, is never compromise excellence at any stage of your business.
Excellence in terms of services is what will keep your assisted living facility attracting new customers, retaining old customers and of course, keeping the business growing.
Excellence in this regard should go beyond the uniform and dressing of your employees. It should be all-encompassing to include top-notch services, a highly secured and safe environment, a clean and hygienic facility, and above all good ambiance and care.
Trust me, people will always be willing to bring their elderly parents or family members to your facility without minding the cost.
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Enforce Accountability Across Board
Another strategy you would need if indeed you want to successfully run your assisted living facility is to ensure that you enforce accountability across board in your company. Make it clear that everybody, including you as the head of the business, is expected to be accountable to the whole team.
Nobody should do things and just get away with them. If any employee won’t be able to make it to work on time, they should make it a point of duty to call their supervisor or manager and inform him/her on time. This will enable management to reassign someone else to that workstation.
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Keep Your Fun Activities Updated Regularly
As the owner of an assisted living facility, the success of your management style will be tested by the results you produce. In essence, you must do stuff that will help you attract new residents and retain old residents and part of what you need to make this happen is to keep your fun activities updated on a regular basis.
You don’t need to stick to the same old same old fun activities, you should keep tabs with the trends and be proactive when it comes to creating fun and lively activities.
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Mingle and Build Relationships with Your Residents and Their Family Members
One of the ways you will know a good manager is not how they relate with their employees but also how they relate with their customers.
So, if you want to successfully run your assisted living facility, you should be willing to mingle and build relationships with your residents and their family members.
When you have a relationship with your residents and their family members, it will be easier for you to check up on them when you have not seen them in a while.
There are different types of people that pass through or visit assisted living facilities, which is why you should up your tolerance and interpersonal skills.
You can also encourage your employees to take the time to talk with residents and their family members and learn their names – having a personal relationship with people is what’s going to build up your list of regular patrons you can also look up to.
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Hire Qualified Workers
Another tip you would need if indeed you want to successfully run your assisted living facility business is to ensure that you hire qualified workers. The truth is that if you have qualified employees manning various positions in your assisted living facility, you will find it easier to manage them; they will know what is expected of them and how to get things done.
Besides, your employees are the first experience residents and their family members are going to have when they walk into your facility.
So, make sure you only hire employees who are enthusiastic about their job and have a great attitude. Also look for team players who have a good work ethic, who are willing to go that extra mile for your residents and their family members.
Having your employees reflect the positive atmosphere of your assisted living facility goes a long way in building up the business to continue to attract residents.
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Adopt International Best Practices
When it comes to successfully managing a business, there are international best practices to follow. So, if you want to successfully run your assisted living facility business, you must ensure that you adopt international best practices.
You can always review journals or publications that will bring you up to speed and also read bestselling assisted living facility and healthcare management books to stay informed.
There are numerous books written by managers, owners, and experts that are filled with tips and advice on how to manage assisted living facilities.
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Have a Fair Tip Policy for Employees
When it comes to assisted living facilities or the healthcare industry in general, tips are usually allowed and most employees rely on their tips to pay some of their bills.
If you don’t want staff members who are not in position to receive tips to be disgruntled, then you must come up with a fair tip policy for all employees (security guards, cleaners, caregivers, nurses, and kitchen staff).
It must be done in such a way that the person that directly receives the tips will not feel cheated. Most importantly, make it a point of duty to educate your staff about reporting and submitting any tip they receive during the course of carrying out their duty.
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Operate Open Door Policy
Another tip that you need to adopt if indeed you want to successfully run your assisted living facility business is to operate an open-door policy; you should keep your doors open for suggestions from members of your team (your employees) and your clients (residents and their family members).
With that in place, you will be able to get suggestions that will help you manage your assisted living facility business effectively.
Please note that you are not expected to use all the suggestions that you receive. What is expected from you is to screen and vet the suggestions that you get and only make use of the ones that suit your business or style of management.
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Attend Related Refresher Courses
To be on the top of your game in terms of managing your assisted living facility business effectively, you should be able to attend refresher courses on management.
When you expose yourself to the right training and courses, you will stay current with the latest trends. You will be able to understand your residents and their family members, what they want and expect when they enroll or when they visit your assisted living facility.
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Reward Excellence
If you want to get people to carry out assigned tasks with an open heart and pay attention to details, ensure that you reward excellence; it is one management tip that you would need to adopt if indeed you want to successfully run your assisted living facility.
Rewarding excellence might not be massive and expensive. It could be recognizing an employee, celebrating an employee or giving out tokens in form of appreciation to an employee that goes the extra mile to get things done for the organization.
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Have Regular Meetings with Your Workers
Having regular meetings with your workers is yet another tip you would need if you want to successfully run your assisted living facility.
Part of what you need to do is to ensure that you create time for office meetings; a time where challenges, feedbacks, projections, and relevant issues are discussed. This is the time to educate your staff on any new procedures and reinforce the current company’s policies.
Meetings can also be a good time for team building – get everyone on the same page with a positive work attitude, emphasizing the value that each employee brings to the team.
The meetings could be daily, once in a week, twice a week, or once in a month. The bottom line is that there should be consistent meetings in your organization.
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Restructure Your Cash Handling Policies and Procedures
Another important tip you would need if you want to successfully run your assisted living facility is to ensure you restructure your cash handling policies in such a way as to eliminate any loopholes. It must focus on accountability, trustworthy staff, and having the right procedures in place.
Decide who can handle cash, limiting access to people you can trust, like your cashier (account office) or admin manager. Choose more than one person to handle cash – with this method in place, there will be a system of accountability.
Have two or three employees in charge of all cash handling. This keeps them accountable. Once you come up with policies for cash handling, make sure that you implement them and that all your staff understands the procedure.
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Choose the Right Assisted Living Facility Management Software
You will quite agree that the advent of technology has made life easier for humanity and one of the ways to make managing your assisted living facility easier and effective is to choose the right assisted living facility management software.
An effective assisted living facility management software will help you track your income and taxes. It will help you simplify the process of employee scheduling and running of the roaster, it will help you accept payments with debit and credit cards, it will help you automate your inventory management and above all, it will help you track employee hours and monitor productivity.
Please note that for a business such as assisted living facility, the most popular and versatile management software is a unique and easy to use electronic medical records software and mobile app used by more than 8,000 organizations, manages human resources, administration,
Operations, scheduling, clinical needs and billing through a single sign-on solution and more than 40 interoperable integrations—enabling electronic referral acceptance, physician orders tracking and more. Note that this cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant system is securely accessible on all devices, including iOS and Android.
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Prevent Wastages and Theft
An important attribute that a good manager ought to possess is the ability to prevent theft in the assisted living facility. No assisted living facility manager wants to think about it, but in reality, stealing is a regular occurrence in an assisted living facility, and servers are over-pouring, stealing stuff from people suffering from amnesia, and giving away free drinks and food to their friends and family members.
Wastages and theft can negatively drive up your costs and lower your profits. This is why a good manager should know how to prevent wastages and theft in the assisted living facility and they can achieve this by regularly checking tabs and routinely reconciling things in the store and kitchen.
They can also prevent theft and wastages by installing security cameras and investing in video recognition software that compares your security footage with your store and kitchen records.
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Partner with Key Stakeholders That Will Help You Attract Customers
If you run an assisted living facility, then in order for you to continue to be in business you must make sure you get residents occupying all the available rooms in your facility.
Aside from marketing your assisted living facility, you can also leverage referral sources. One good thing about a referral is that if you continue to be in a good relationship with the source, you will continue to get clients with little or no effort from your end.
You can partner with doctors and hospitals, life and medical insurance companies that work with the elderly, Veterans Benefits Organizations, and social media influencers who have the capacity to send clients across your way.
Note that you can reach an agreement with them on the percentage they stand to get when any customer comes through their referrals.
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Ensure That Your Facility is Top Notch
Another key strategy that you need to adopt if indeed you want to successfully run your assisted living facility is to ensure that your facility is top-notch and always welcoming.
You must ensure that your facility is equipped with modern technology. Make sure you provide your residents and their family members with the right ambiance that will make them feel safe to stay in your facility.
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Review Your Management Styles Annually
Reviewing your management styles annually is yet another tip you need to successfully run your assisted living facility business.
The truth is that no matter the management style you adopt, it is highly important to at least review the method to see how effective it was, and if it suits your personality.
Part of what you need to do is to go on a retreat with some of your key management staff and then critically examine your management methods to know how far it fares and if you need to continue with the method or opt for another management method.
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Put Systems and Processes in Place That Make Your Business Run on Autopilot
It is now trendy to find corporate organizations and even medium to small businesses running on autopilot. When a business runs on autopilot, it means that the business needs little or no supervision in other to achieve results.
But before you can attain this height, you need to deliberately document all the processes involved in carrying out your services as requested by your clients.
As a matter of fact, there might be a need to hire experts to help you put systems and processes in place that will make your assisted living facility business run on autopilot.
In conclusion,
No business becomes successful if effective management systems are not put in place. The above management tips can be adopted by anyone who is managing an assisted living facility or any other business no matter the industry your business belongs to.
These are tips that have been proven to deliver excellent results and they can work for your assisted living facility business as well.