If you ask home care owners where their best referrals come from, hospital discharge planners come up again and again. They see a steady stream of patients who are going home and will need help once they get there. When a discharge planner trusts your agency, referrals can arrive week after week.
The catch is that every other agency in town is trying to win that same trust. Discharge planners get a lot of visits, a lot of brochures and a lot of pastries. Most of it blurs together.
This guide covers what actually earns a place on a discharge planner's short list: what they need from you, what to bring, what to say, and how to stay top of mind without becoming a pest.
First, understand the discharge planner's job
A discharge planner's job is to get patients out of the hospital safely and on time. Titles vary. You'll meet discharge planners, case managers, social workers and transition-of-care nurses. Many are juggling a full caseload, tight deadlines and families who are anxious and unsure what comes next.
When they think about a home care agency, they aren't asking "who brought the nicest gift basket?" They're asking:
- Will this agency pick up the phone? A discharge often comes together fast. An agency that calls back tomorrow is no help today.
- Can they actually staff it? Saying yes to a referral and then failing to send a caregiver makes the planner look bad to the patient and the family.
- Will I hear what happened? Planners like to know the patient got home and care started.
- Do they take this kind of patient? Service area, minimum hours, overnight or live-in care, and which payers you accept all matter.
Everything you do with a discharge planner should answer those four questions. Being friendly helps, but being reliable is what gets you referrals.
Before your first visit
Find the right people. Call the hospital's case management or social work department and ask who handles discharges to home. Ask if there's a better time of day to stop by. Mornings are often busy with discharge planning, so an afternoon visit may be better received. The staff will tell you if you ask.
Bring one useful page, not a brochure. A single sheet a planner can keep at their desk is worth more than a glossy folder. Put the practical facts on it:
- The phone number that gets answered, including evenings and weekends
- How quickly you can usually start care
- Your service area
- Minimum visit length or hours
- The types of care you offer, like personal care, companionship, overnight or live-in
- The payers you accept, such as private pay, long-term care insurance or VA benefits
Know your own capacity. Before you promise fast starts, be sure your scheduling team can deliver them. The worst outcome of a great visit is a first referral you can't staff.
What to say (and what not to)
Resist the urge to pitch. Planners have heard "we provide compassionate, quality care" from every agency that ever walked in.
Ask questions instead, and listen:
- "What makes a discharge to home hard for you right now?"
- "Which patients are hardest to find help for?"
- "When an agency has let you down before, what happened?"
- "What's the best way to reach you with an update?"
Their answers tell you exactly how to be useful. If they struggle to place overnight care, and you can do it, that's your opening. If an agency once left them waiting two days for a callback, promise a callback within the hour, then keep that promise.
Write down what they tell you as soon as you're back in the car. Next month you won't remember which planner mentioned weekend discharges and which one prefers texts.
Treat the first referral like an audition
The first referral from a new planner matters more than any visit. It's their test of whether you mean what you said.
- Respond right away. Call back fast, even if it's just to say you're on it.
- Be honest. If you can't staff it, say so quickly so they can call someone else. A fast "no" is far better than a slow "maybe."
- Start when you said you would. On time, with the right caregiver.
- Close the loop. Let the planner know care has started, following your agency's and the hospital's privacy rules about what you can share.
Do that well once, and you're no longer a name on a brochure. You're the agency that came through.
Stay top of mind without being a pest
Relationships with discharge planners fade if you disappear. They also sour if you stop by so often you get in the way.
A few habits that work:
- Keep a steady rhythm. Your most active sources might deserve a visit every couple of weeks. Quieter ones might be monthly. Decide on purpose rather than by whoever you happen to remember.
- Bring something useful. An updated availability note, a new service you can offer, or an answer to a question they asked last time.
- Know more than one person. Planners change jobs and units. If your whole relationship with a hospital lives with one person, it can vanish overnight. Get to know the team.
- Thank them. A short note after a referral goes a long way.
Track it, or it didn't happen
Most agencies don't lose discharge planners because of one bad experience. They lose them slowly. Nobody visits for a couple of months, a competitor steps in, and by the time anyone notices, the referrals have stopped.
The fix is simple to describe and hard to do by memory alone: keep a record of every relationship. For each discharge planner and each hospital, track:
- When you last visited or called, and who went
- What they told you, like their frustrations, preferences and the best way to reach them
- What you promised, and whether you followed through
- What you spent, such as lunches, materials and mileage
- How many referrals they've sent, and how many became clients
With that record, you can see which relationships are paying off, which ones have gone quiet and need a visit, and whether your marketing budget is buying real results.
A spreadsheet can hold some of this. But it won't tell you that a hospital hasn't sent anyone in two months, or which marketer last saw them. That's the gap a CRM built for home care fills.
How ReferaCare helps
We built ReferaCare for exactly this kind of relationship-building. You keep every hospital, discharge planner and referral source in one place. Your team logs each visit with what was spent, and the reports show which relationships actually send you clients and what each one costs. When a source goes quiet, you'll see it before your census does.
It works right alongside the scheduling and billing software you already use. You can see all the features, look at the reports, or check pricing. There's a 7-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Whatever tools you use, the approach is the same: learn what discharge planners need, prove you can deliver it, and never let a good relationship go quiet by accident.