AAHomecare tries to make it personal

WASHINGTON - A businessman at heart, it doesn't sit well with Tom Ryan that AAHomecare's membership numbers have been flat for the past three years.

That's why Ryan, the president and CEO of the association, has enlisted Laboratory Tactical Consulting to help bring in new members and help retain existing members.

“AAHomecare is the umbrella that ties this industry together,” he said. “We have to make sure we're a healthy, robust national association.”

AAHomecare and Laboratory Tactical Consulting had a one-day meeting in June to review the association's prospecting and onboarding processes for members.

In such a high-tech and social media-savvy world, one of AAHomecare's strategies to improve those processes will be personal communication, Ryan says.

“We need to get on a call and tell them what we're doing and ask them what their biggest issue is, so there's a feeling of comfort and a sense of understanding,” he said. “Those one-on-one conversations are something we're working on.”

Technology has its place, though, and AAHomecare plans to use it to target certain providers with certain information, like respiratory providers with information on recent comments submitted to CMS on vents, Ryan says.

“It's just good member engagement,” he said.

The overarching goal is to make the ROI of being an AAHomecare member clearer, says Anna McDevitt, owner of Laboratory Tactical Consulting.

“What are those value propositions,” she said. “When things are changing like they are, adaptability is really important. So we need to define that value to membership.”