Working with Home Care Packages (HCP) Care Providers

Finding Care Providers, servicing their clients and building connections with them is crucial to successfully servicing Home Care Packages (HCP) Recipients.

There are around 950 Care Providers across Australia servicing about 300,000 recipients of Home Care Packages. Every HCP recipient is required to have their allocated funds managed by a Care Provider. And some Care Providers also manage NDIs plan managed participants.

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 I 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.

Do I need to go through an onboarding process with Care Providers? 

Many Care Providers require meal service providers to go through a formal onboarding process to be able to service their HCP clients. Fortunately, this process is similar for a majority of HCP Care Providers. If you would like to service this HCP segment, we recommend that you prepare a document to share with the Care Providers with all the information that they might require.

What information do Care Providers generally require?

Care Providers are likely to ask for details about your business that assure them that you are a suitable and safe meal provider for their clients.

This is what we recommend you supply to Care Providers:

• An introductory letter: We have developed this example letter to Care Providers which includes some of the information that they will need, as well as an explanation of how you work. We suggest customising this letter to suit your business

• links to a recent menu or a PDF of a recent menu that showcases the nature of the meals you provide and your price point

• Workers Compensation Certificate of Currency (This is the link to Victoria WorkSafe for other States or Territory Certificate please go to the relevant finder page or contact your Insurer).

• Public Liability Insurance Policy

• Evidence of having completed Food Safety training by a Registered Training Authority to Supervisor level

• Your document proving Registration of your Food Premises
  

• Police Check Certificate / Statutory Declaration

# 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.’

Tip #1: Have your onboarding documents ready for when you are set up to offer meals

Tip #2: INVEST IN the relationship with your care provider by meeting in person, offering tastings and coupon codes for staff discounts

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.