# The 90-Day Front Office Playbook

This playbook helps a non-medical home care agency move from scattered calls, notes, spreadsheets, and memory-based follow-up into a visible front-office operating rhythm.

## The problem

Most agencies do not lose opportunities because the team does not care. They lose them because information is scattered:

- Calls live in phone logs.
- Website forms sit in email.
- Referral notes stay in one person's notebook.
- Applicant follow-up is separate from client demand.
- Owners ask for updates and receive fragments.

The goal of the first 90 days is not to automate everything. The goal is to make the work visible.

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## Days 1–30: Capture and baseline

### Objective
Create one reliable place where every inquiry, referral, and applicant is recorded.

### What to standardize

- Inquiry source.
- Caller and decision-maker.
- Client location.
- Care need.
- Urgency.
- Payer context.
- Decision context.
- Next step.
- Owner.
- Due date.

### Weekly action
Review five recent inquiries and ask:

1. Could another team member understand what happened?
2. Is the next step obvious?
3. Is the family still waiting on the agency?
4. Was payer or decision context captured?
5. Was the inquiry source recorded?

### Success marker by day 30
At least 80% of new inquiries are visible in one place with a clear next step.

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## Days 31–60: Follow-up ownership

### Objective
Stop relying on memory for callbacks, assessments, referral updates, and applicant movement.

### What to standardize

- Follow-up owner.
- Follow-up type.
- Due date and time.
- Completion status.
- Outcome note.
- Next action.

### Weekly action
Hold a 20-minute front-office review:

- Overdue family follow-ups.
- Assessments not scheduled.
- Referral partners needing updates.
- Applicants waiting for screening or references.
- Cases where the owner is unclear.

### Success marker by day 60
The agency can answer, within one minute, who needs follow-up today and who owns it.

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## Days 61–90: Referral and applicant rhythm

### Objective
Connect growth work to operating visibility.

### Referral rhythm

Track:

- Active partners.
- Last touch date.
- Referrals received.
- Referrals converted.
- Outcome updates owed.
- Next outreach date.

### Applicant rhythm

Track:

- Applicant source.
- Availability.
- Experience tags.
- Screening status.
- Reference status.
- Ready-to-hire status.
- Next action.

### Weekly action
Review the three pipelines together:

1. Family inquiries.
2. Referral relationships.
3. Caregiver applicants.

Ask: Are we creating more client demand than we can staff? Are we contacting referral partners without tracking outcomes? Are applicants going stale while families wait?

### Success marker by day 90
The agency has a weekly operating desk review that covers inquiries, follow-up, referral partners, and caregiver applicants in one rhythm.

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## Final checklist

By the end of 90 days, your front office should be able to answer:

- How many inquiries came in last week?
- How quickly were they contacted?
- How many were complete enough to act on?
- Which follow-ups are overdue?
- Which referral partners need attention?
- Which caregiver applicants are ready, stuck, or stale?

If those answers are visible, the agency has moved beyond scattered front-office work.