How to Find and Build Connections with Home Care Package Care Providers

Finding Care Providers and building connections with them is crucial to successfully servicing Home Care Package (HCP) Recipients.

There are around 950 Care Providers across Australia servicing about 300,000 recipients of Home Care Packages.

These organisations are generally a mix of:

• Religious organisations such as the Uniting Church

• Charitable organisations like Hammond Care or the Salvation Army

• Community-based organisations such as the RSL or LifeCare

• Local Government like the Bayside City Council

• Private companies such as Regis or My Home Care.

What is my opportunity to service Home Care Package Recipients? 

Lite n’ Easy have done a great job of establishing relationships with about 850 of the 950 Care Providers and they dominate this meal space. We have received consistent reports that recipients use Lite n’ Easy primarily due to the ease of ordering due to them being approved by the Care Provider.

Other consistent feedback is that recipients would appreciate the opportunity to use the services of a local business who they can build a relationship with and who produce smaller ‘batched’ cooking rather than production-based meals that often travel thousands of kilometres before they reach their destination.

Using purpose-built features within Cookaborough, smaller food businesses can now service this HCP market. Using our connections and automation you can offer the same level of service that Care Providers and their recipients are used to with the other, large national meals suppliers, while having a significant point of difference in the nature of your meals and the local connection you afford recipients. 

How do HCP Care Providers and their Care Managers operate? 

All recipients are required to use the services of a Care Provider who is responsible for administering their account. A key part of a Care Provider's role is to provide a network of service providers that the recipient can select from. The Care Providers charge a fee of around 15% of the recipient's fund to perform this role.

How do you find the HCP Care Providers?

Cookaborough has access to all the Care Providers including the recipients they typically provide for. We can share this with food businesses using Cookaborough and tailor the Care Provider information to you based upon factors such as your location, service areas and suitability.

You are also able to identify Care Providers yourself via online searches, using key words such as ‘HCP Care Providers’ in conjunction with your location.

# Tip: ask the Care provider what kind of meals their clients like and which packaging is best for them.

Building strong connections with Care Providers.

We see the greatest success when meal businesses invest time and effort into building strong relationships with Care Providers.

Care Providers generally have one staff member (often referred to as a Care Manager/Coordinator) who oversees 20-40 Participants each. The support of these staff play an important role in increasing the awareness of your offering and referring new customers.  

Some of the initiatives we suggest you explore include:

• Organising a time to meet with their Home Care team to discuss your business, philosophy of food and the nature of the service you provide.

• Providing some tastings for their team to try.

• Offering coupon codes for their team to use so they become familiar with your meals and in time, to encourage them to become advocates of your service.

• Providing great resources for Care Providers to be able to share with their clients such as printed menu examples and a photo with information about you.

Leveraging current relationships.

If you are already servicing the Home Care Package participants, the first place you should start is connecting with the Care Providers of your customers, introducing yourself and outlining your reason for suitability as a preferred supplier. Then you will be able to access other Participants managed by the Care Provider. 

Develop your HCP Care Provider ‘pitch’.

It is important to clearly define your business proposition to HCP Care Providers prior to contacting them.

Some of the key reasons that attract Care Providers are your suitability to look after recipients’ needs and the ease of processing invoices. So it is worth mentioning that:

• That you are a local meal business that specialise in providing meals in the HCP space.
• You have invested in the technology to facilitate HCP transactions that make it easy for the Care Provider & Participants to place orders, including:
  • Splitting the invoice into the required 70/30 portions and enabling the Participant to only pay the 30% upfront and you invoice the Care Provider for the remaining amount.
  • You have made it really easy for recipients to sign up and order, including being able to do it for them.
• You are always available to discuss any queries and also accept phone orders for those unable to use the internet.
• Meals are locally sourced and produced in small batches.

What to say initially when you call the Care Providers.

It is worth keeping in mind that often the first person you speak to may not be the right person. They may be a receptionist or in a different division. We suggest asking to speak to someone in the Home Care division. Ideally this would be a Care Manager or similar.

We have developed the below scripts to give you some ideas prior to making contact:

‘Hi, I am Lyndon from Mary Street Kitchen, and we are a locally-based meal provider specialising in the HCP meals. I am enquiring about the process of becoming an approved meal provider for <insert Care Provider’s name>?’

‘We work with other Care Providers and wanted to reach out to <insert Care Provider’s name>, as we know you are one of the main Care Providers in our community’.

‘Our meals are sourced and prepared locally, and our HCP customers give us great feedback about the quality of our meals and benefits of dealing with a local business.’

‘We have invested in developing the technology required to automate the journey and make it easy for you as a Care Provider and also for your customers.’

‘We have the ability to manually sign up customers and also accept phone or in-person orders for the customers who prefer this service.’

Related blog: Onboarding Home Care Package Customers

Let us know how you go

Want to know more? Fill in the form below, and our team will be in touch to help you begin the process of becoming a HCP meal provider. 

And as always, if you need additional support, feel free to contact our team for help.