Referrals are one of the most powerful drivers of growth for home care agencies. A strong referral program not only strengthens relationships with trusted professionals but also builds a steady pipeline of high-quality, organic leads.

Drawing on the myriad lessons learned building Clara Home Care’s referral strategy from the ground up, the following article offers a beginners guide to creating an effective referral program  that delivers lasting results for home care agencies.

What is a referral program?

At its core, a referral program is a marketing and client acquisition strategy built around the development of relationships with trusted referral sources. These sources act as advocates for your agency, recommending your services to families and patients who need home care. When executed well, a referral program gives your agency a competitive edge by creating a consistent stream of qualified leads.

A referral program has a few key elements, primarily focused on establishing, maintaining and growing relationships with your referrers.

Who are referrers in home care?

In the home care industry, referral sources generally fall into two categories:

• Professional Referrers, such as case managers, discharge planners, social workers, gerontologists, care managers and other healthcare professionals who connect patients/clients to resources.

• Community Referrers, such as family, friends, or community members who recommend your agency through word-of-mouth.

Indeed, understanding who your most valuable referrers are is the foundation of an effective referral program, which must be tailored to each different audience. These two groups, for instance, require very different approaches to establish a referral relationship: the techniques you utilize to build trust with professional referrers will vary widely from that which you use to develop trust with community referrers. This is largely because of their unique motivations and role within the client journey.

To that end, a great way to identify your potential referrers is to map out your client’s journey: who do potential clients speak to when exploring care options? Hospital staff, primary care providers, insurance advisors, or friends and family may all influence the decision-making process. What do those people need to feel confident referring to you? For a case manager, it might be a personalized direct line to reach your team to ensure their patients receive expedited care when the patient is going through a rapid discharge. Community referrers, on the other hand, might need a personal connection to a member of the company or a strong testimonial to recommend your agency to a friend when they’re starting to look for home care. Identifying these touchpoints helps you identify and tailor your referral strategy to each audience.

Why should I build a referral program?

Referral-based leads often outperform other acquisition channels. At Clara Home Care, we found that leads from qualified referrers converted into private-pay clients at seven times the rate of other lead sources.

Not only do referral leads convert at higher rates, but those from professional referrers also tend to require more intensive care services, resulting in greater revenue per client. A strong referral program builds a sustainable pipeline of high-quality clients, directly contributing to profitability and long-term growth.

Step 1: Establish Relationships

Once you’ve figured out who your most valuable referrers are. Now what? You need to think about three things:

• Where can you find them? Are they in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, financial advisor offices?

• What does their day look like? Are they slammed with discharges and paperwork, or do they have more time for conversation?

• What do they care about? Not the generic answer (“they care about their patients”) but the real stuff—maybe they’re stressed about time, worried about compliance, or frustrated by unreliable providers.

The answers shape how you approach them. And once you make contact, give them something concrete: a referral packet. Keep it professional, but also practical. Include:

• How to reach you (ideally a direct line, not a phone tree)

• Key talking points they can use with families

• What makes your agency different

Your goal is to make referring to you as easy and low-risk as possible.

Step 2: Maintain Relationships

In my experience in building our referral program at Clara, I quickly learned that the key to maintaining good relationships with my referrers was best guided by understanding the referrer’s life and needs than imposing an generalized input-based visit structure on them. This allowed me to differentiate myself from others, engendering a degree of trust and personability.

While I was doing my weekly visits to skilled nursing facilities and hospitals in the Bay Area, I decided to ask the case managers I was meeting what they really thought about weekly visits from marketers. The response was overwhelmingly negative. Some of them were dealing with up to six visits a day and felt the need to create “marketing hours” to constrain home care agency visitors to just one afternoon. Instead of helping, they felt that marketing drop-ins just got in the way.

What worked better was simple: I asked what they actually needed. Some wanted a quick reference guide they could hand to families, and to contact me when they ran out. Others just wanted to know they could pass on my number to families to answer their burning (often complex and time-consuming) questions. So I built resources like a “Guide to Home Care” that explained what home care is (and what it isn’t). I left space for them to jot notes during care conferences. It made their lives easier — and that made me different from the agencies dropping off muffins.

So when you’re thinking about maintaining your relationships with your referrers, ask yourself:

• Am I respecting their time?

• Am I providing real value?

• Have I asked them what they actually want?

If you can check those boxes, you’re already ahead.

Step 3: Demonstrate Competence

You can build all the relationships you want, but if the families they send your way have a bad experience, it’s game over. Referrers need to know they can trust you – not just once, but every time.

That means two things:

1. Make availability obvious. When the referrer actually wants to get in touch, don’t make them hunt you down through a front desk or phone tree. A direct referral line or contact method shows that you value their time and partnership

2. Close the loop. Don’t forget to thank the referrer and update them on the outcome. Even if it wasn’t a fit, highlight what you did do: how quickly you followed up, the information you provided, or the steps you took to support the family (such as connecting them with another valuable resource).

3. Continuously track referrals and outcomes. Know exactly who referred whom! Build a system (even a simple spreadsheet at first) to track what happened and where they came to you from. Did the family sign on? Did you provide resources even if they didn’t sign on? That context matters when you circle back with the referrer, or when you visit again. Being able to name drop a client they referred goes a long way to reinforcing your primary value proposition to the referrer: you’re the best agency because you care deeply about your clients.

4. Collect and share family feedback. A positive testimonial from a family you served goes a long way toward reinforcing that their referral was well-placed. Referrers want proof that their patients or clients are cared for, and that you’re a trusted partner in their care.

Of these steps, I would argue that closing the loop is the most critical. Most agencies’ core value proposition is that they have “the best caregivers” — and while your agency may indeed have a strong recruiting pipeline, rigorous training, and deeply committed caregivers, many still struggle with the operational side of care: staffing, scheduling, matching caregivers to families, and managing day-to-day logistics. Families notice inconsistencies and callouts, and in a hyperlocal network, word spreads quickly — even back to referrers. The gap between promise and delivery can erode trust fast.

This is where the right tools make all the difference. At Sage, we help agencies optimize home care operations, from caregiver matching to workflow efficiency, ensuring that when you say, “refer to us because we have the best caregivers,” your back office is fully equipped to deliver on that promise. Those positive experiences pay dividends, setting your agency apart and keeping your referral pipeline growing.

Over time, this builds a great track record: at Clara, families had the same caregiver (or team of caregivers) for an average of 94% of their tenure with Clara. Being able to tell my referrers that their patient found and kept a caregiver they love – and that that individual is their carer every day of the week – went a long way.

Referrers learn that when they send someone your way, that family will be taken care of. You win more referrals and the high value of those relationships are reflected in your bottom line.

Final Thoughts

Building a referral program isn’t about gimmicks, donuts, or brochures stacked in a hospital lobby. It’s about trust. Referrers want to know that if they send someone your way, that family will get what they need: quick follow-up, clear communication, and reliable care.

Referrals convert better, generate higher-value clients, and create a steady stream of business that advertising alone can’t replicate. But they don’t happen by accident. The most successful marketers are the ones that carefully map out who their referrers are, invest the time to build trust in a meaningful way, and then back it up with consistent, competent service.

A thoughtful, well-run referral program doesn’t just bring in more clients; it cements your reputation in the community and creates a reliable engine for cumulative growth.