The 3 Best Ways to Increase Your Profit per Resident

Margins are tight in senior living, so maximizing revenue potential is critical to long-term success. An effective way of generating additional revenue is to increase the amount of profit received per resident without compromising care or experience. Here are the three-best ways communities can achieve higher revenue per resident and meet their financial goals.

1. Keep Residents Healthy
It’s simple: The healthier a resident, the longer they’ll remain in your community — and the longer they’ll continue to pay rent. To maximize profit per resident, senior living staff and administrators need to keep their residents in good, stable health.

There are several ways to do this, and one of the best involves implementing a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR). When a community takes the plunge, and makes this technology investment, they’re investing in their residents’ future health, and the community’s bottom line.

With an EHR, staff can more easily recognize when a resident’s health is in decline, or when a resident may need an intervention to avoid the hospital. Once a resident is hospitalized, it’s uncertain whether they’ll return, which can financially rattle a community. If a community is able to prevent a resident from going to the hospital in the first place, that community is less likely to lose a source of revenue.

2. Keep Residents Happy
Unfortunately, even healthy senior living residents can be unhappy — and unhappy residents can move out.

To put it plainly, it’s not enough to just keep residents in good health. Senior living staff need to tirelessly ensure residents are satisfied with their experience. This means getting to know residents on a personal level. Taking an interest in their likes and dislikes, and helping them find the right outlets to express their creativity and desires goes a long way.

Keeping residents in good mental health is also an important way to ensure their happiness. Staff can use an EHR to manage and track changes in residents’ state of mental health, potentially intervening if a resident seems unusually depressed or in need of extra attention.

3. Align Residents’ Wants and Needs with Corresponding Amenities and Services
For senior living communities to be financially viable in the first place, they have to attract new residents. To do this, communities should offer seniors services and amenities unavailable in their own homes. The tough part is ensuring they’re amenities the residents actually want, to avoid losing money.

If no one is signing up for water aerobics, it’s a good idea to cancel the activity and let go of the instructor. Surveying residents is a great way to understand what it is they really want.

One senior living provider — Edina-based Welcov Healthcare — has successfully maximized profits by better aligning the services its communities offer with what local residents actually want and need. To learn more about how Welcov went about accomplishing this, watch the video below: