Outsourced home health intake: who works the referral before the start of care visit?
Every referral worked, every file ready for your clinician.
A dedicated, full-time home health intake coordinator from Neon Link costs $2,295 a month, month to month, or $2,195 a month on the 6-month plan, with no setup fee. Working remotely from the Philippines on your US business hours, they log every referral from hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and physician offices, check Medicare or plan eligibility and whether another agency already has an open home health period for the patient, gather the orders and face to face notes your clinicians need, and hand your intake nurse a file ready for the start of care visit. It fits home health and hospice agencies whose referrals wait while the office catches up, while accepting a patient and every clinical decision stay with your clinical team.
Rates come from our live rate card. Page updated .
See 3 candidate profiles for your role
Tell us the role. Within 48 hours our team emails you 3 anonymized profiles from people who applied for this kind of work with us: their experience, their region and the software they use.
What your Linker handles
- Log every referral as it arrives from hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, physician offices and e-referral portals, with the patient, the referral source, the payer and the services ordered
- Check Medicare eligibility and whether another agency already has an open home health period, or verify the plan and start the authorization for Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial patients
- Gather the signed orders, the face to face encounter note, recent history and medication list, and request anything missing from the referral source
- Pass each complete file to your intake nurse or clinical manager to accept or decline, and record the decision and the reason
- Schedule the start of care visit with your clinician once the patient is accepted, and confirm it with the patient or family
- Tell the referral source when a patient is accepted, pending or declined, by your rules
- Track every referral to a start of care or a documented reason it did not start, so you can see which sources convert
- Send the office a short end of shift handoff on referrals waiting on documents, eligibility, a clinical decision or a visit
We screen for the systems you run, such as Homecare Homebase, WellSky, Axxess or MatrixCare, referral portals such as CarePort, and the eligibility tools your agency uses. If a finalist has not used yours, you'll know before they start.
How the work is measured
What your Linker is measured on. The targets are set with you in the first week, from your volumes and your hours, and written into your statement of work.
- Every referral logged with its status and next step during the shift it arrives
- Eligibility and open period checks done before the file reaches your clinician
- Missing orders and notes requested promptly and followed up until they arrive
- Every referral tracked to a start of care or a documented reason, by source
What a team costs
| Team | Month to month | 6-month plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Linker | $2,295 | $2,195 |
| 2 Linkers | $4,590 | $4,390 |
| 3 Linkers | $6,885 | $6,585 |
| 4 Linkers | $9,180 | $8,780 |
| 5 Linkers | $11,475 | $10,975 |
| 6 Linkers | $13,770 | $13,170 |
Per month. 40 hours a week per Linker. No setup fee. Prices from our live rate card.
How we vet your Linker
Our recruiting team in the Philippines runs a strict screening and review of every applicant, using a process built by our founder, Dan Betthauser, from twenty years running outsourced operations across the Philippines, Costa Rica and the United States. Every Linker goes through:
- A screen of the application against your role: the work, the software and the experience you need
- A recorded spoken English sample, reviewed by our team
- A practical skills test for your work, scored in our own system
- A live video interview with our recruiting team
- An ID check and a background check: NBI clearance in the Philippines, police clearance in India and Pakistan
- A workspace check before day one: a quiet, private room, wired internet, a backup connection and a plan for power outages
- A signed confidentiality agreement before they see any of your data
- Your own interview with the finalist: nobody starts until you say yes
How it starts
- Step 1Tell us the work: a 15 or 30 minute call with our team, or the sixty second scope on the homepage.
- Step 2Get a written quote at the published rate, held for 30 days.
- Step 3We recruit and screen for your work and your software, and you interview the finalist before they start.
- Step 4Your Linker works your queue on your hours. A Neon Link manager runs the account and answers when you need them.
- Step 5If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost.
A good fit, and not a fit
- Home health and hospice agencies whose referrals sit in the fax queue while the office is busy
- Agencies that lose referrals because the discharge planner calls the next agency on the list
- Multi-location agencies that want one intake desk working the same way for every branch
- Deciding whether a patient is homebound, eligible for hospice or accepted for care. Those are clinical decisions for your nurses and physicians
- OASIS assessments, care plans, coding or anything clinical
- Agencies that need referrals answered overnight or on weekends. Your Linker is one person on your hours, not a 24/7 line
- Agencies whose state Medicaid program or payer contracts do not allow patient data to be handled offshore. Check yours before you start
Open roles behind this page
We recruit for this work now. These are the live postings we hire your Linker from:
See 3 candidate profiles for your role
Tell us the role. Within 48 hours our team emails you 3 anonymized profiles from people who applied for this kind of work with us: their experience, their region and the software they use.
Questions owners ask
How much does it cost to outsource home health intake?
$2,295 a month for one dedicated, full-time person (40 hours a week), month to month, or $2,195 a month on the 6-month plan. There is no setup fee, and pay, equipment and management are inside that one number. For comparison, a US medical office assistant costs about $5,320 a month fully loaded, using the BLS median wage plus employer costs.
Can someone remote handle Medicare home health intake?
The paperwork side, yes. Medicare home health needs certification from a physician or allowed practitioner, a documented face to face encounter, and a patient who is homebound and needs skilled care, and an eligibility check shows whether another agency already has the patient. Your Linker gathers and checks the paperwork, and your clinicians decide whether the patient qualifies and whether you accept them.
Is this the same as your home care scheduling coordinator?
It is the same kind of person, focused on the referral. Some agencies want one person for intake and scheduling; others keep them separate when volume calls for it. We match the role to the work you need.
How is patient information handled?
HIPAA requires a business associate agreement before an outside party handles patient information, so one is signed before your Linker sees any. Your Linker signs a confidentiality agreement, passes a background check, and works from a private space where patient information cannot be seen or overheard. We screen for people who understand the HIPAA minimum necessary rule and keep patient records off personal devices, and they work inside your systems with the access you give them. Some state Medicaid programs and payer contracts limit offshore access to patient data, so check yours before you start.
How is this different from hiring a virtual assistant?
You get one dedicated person who handles your work on your hours, inside your software, and a Neon Link manager runs the account: pay, equipment, replacement if it comes to that, and a phone that gets answered. You never run offshore payroll or manage a freelancer alone. It is not a ticket queue or a 24/7 answering line.
How fast can someone start?
We start recruiting when you say go. You interview the finalist before anyone starts, and the start date is set with you once you pick the person. We would rather take the time to find the right fit than hand you whoever is free.
What if the person is not the right fit?
If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost. After that, if they leave, we recruit the replacement at no charge and manage the handover. Training on your process runs at the normal monthly rate.
Do we have to sign a long contract?
No. Month to month is available on every plan. The 6-month plan trades a longer commitment for a lower monthly rate. A written quote at the published rate is held for 30 days.
Related pages
- Home Care Agencies: Referral intake, caregiver scheduling and shift fills, confirmations, missed clock-in flags, authorization and document tracking.
- Medical Billing Companies: Claims follow-up, AR and denials, payer enrollment, the queues your team never gets to.
- DME order intake specialist: What a dedicated specialist costs to take in DME referrals, check orders and benefits, chase missing documents and hand your team a file ready to schedule.
1 US medical office assistant, fully loaded: ~$5,320/mo How we calculate this
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