Referral volume is useless if it doesn’t convert to SOC. Tracking where referrals drop off tells you whether the problem is intake speed, auth, or something else,our guide on why home health referrals fall out before start of care breaks down root causes and fixes.
Funnel metrics
Count referrals by source and by week. Then count how many made it to SOC. Conversion rate = SOC / referrals. Track average days from referral to SOC. If conversion is low, look at the steps: eligibility, auth, face-to-face, orders. If days are long, find the bottleneck,often it’s waiting on a doc or the payer.
Where referrals drop off
Some agencies lose a lot at eligibility or auth (patient not eligible, or auth delayed). Others lose at intake (missing F2F or order, so they never schedule SOC). Break down your funnel by step and fix the step with the biggest drop. Experienced ops managers review the funnel at least monthly and share the numbers with referral sources when they’re good,“our conversion improved because we fixed X”,so partners see you’re serious about performance. We have a referral conversion worksheet you can download: simple funnel, a place to log by source and by month, and a short list of what to fix at each step. Use the button below to get it.