Consulting Services

EquaCare, Inc. helps health systems and home health care agencies to grow their private duty service lines. It also provides consulting help to independent care managers to develop profitable care-management practices. We provide the highest quality education, training, and consulting assistance in the field. In keeping with its mission, EquaCare seeks to promote better chronic-care management and to prevent hospitalization and nursing home placement of frail elders, the physically disabled, and the chronically and/or terminally ill. At EquaCare we are invested in making a positive contribution to preserving the integrity of our health care and long-term care systems.

EquaCare serves a wide variety of health care and care management providers throughout the country, including home health care agencies, hospitals, health systems, and independent care managers. We help our clients improve both the quality of the care they provide and the financial stability of their enterprise. We provide on- and off-site consulting services that include any or all of the following:

• New Business Start-Up
• Market Analysis
• Operations Setup
• Forms and Contracts
• Policy and Procedures
• Staffing Assistance
• Exisiting Operations Turn-Around
• Problem Analysis
• Strategic Planning
• Staff Education and Training
• Quality Assurance
• Time Management Coaching
• Ongoing Consulting

The Challenge

In the United States in 2006, the measurable cost of direct medical treatment — 70 percent of which is given to chronically ill or physically disabled people — was nearly $2.1 trillion. This equaled approximately 16 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, nearly triple its percentage forty years ago. And the cost keeps rising. Preventing the unnecessary hospitalization and nursing home placement of our most vulnerable citizens has become our number one, national health care priority. In order to serve the burgeoning chronic-care market, health care and long-term care providers will need to expand their community-based long-term care services. These services will include traditional caregiving services ? nursing, physical and occupational therapy, counseling and personal care — as well as the non-medical essentials of long-term care management, such as estate and financial planning referrals, community resource linkage, barrier assessment and modification, housing assistance and long-term care planning.

We call this all-inclusive service ElderCare Planning. We believe that ElderCare Planning (ECP) will become an integral part of the service mix of all health care providers over the next few decades. Professional caregivers who are well trained in the fundamentals of ECP and the provision of ongoing, community-based care management will thrive in the coming years as the baby boomers age. At EquaCare we see tremendous opportunity for those forward-thinking individuals and organizations able to adapt as health care moves from an institution-based, treatment model to a community-based, prevention approach.

Client Agencies

• Masonicare and Connecticut VNA, Wallingford, CT
• Valley Home Care (Valley Health System), Paramus, NJ
• Visiting Nurse and Health Services of CT, Inc., Vernon, CT
• Lee Regional Visiting Nurse Association, Inc., Lee, MA
• Visiting Nurse Service of Greater Rhode Island, Inc. Lincoln, RI
• Home Health Care Management, Inc., Reading, PA
• VNA of Manchester and S. New Hampshire, Manchester, NH
• VNA and Hospice of Indiana County, Indiana, PA
• Visiting Nurse Service of Des Moines, Des Moines, IA
• Gardner Visiting Nurse Associaton, Gardner, MA
• Visiting Nurse Service of New York, New York, NY
• AtlantiCare Health Systems, Egg Harbor Twp., NJ