Thank you to all the attendees at this year's Leadership Conference! We had a great turnout, more than 385 attendees, at one of the best conferences Comfort Keepers^® has ever produced. Attendees had the opportunity to interact with "retired and inspired" motivational keynote speaker, Lee Cockerell, who gave an outstanding presentation during the Friday morning general session, and got to meet with CKFI CEO, Sarosh Mistry, and the CEO of the Personal and Home Services Division of Sodexo, Bruno Vanhaelst. The jam-packed breakout sessions presented by CKFI staff and, for the first time ever, third-party subject-matter experts were a hit as well.

The conference also offered some exciting social events like the franchisee golf outing and the Comfort Keepers^® of the Year luncheon to honor those who do so much to help your clients. Plus, who can forget our emcee, David Wilk, and our first-time attendee celebrity, Wyatt, who both have a phenomenal sense of humor.

The conference closed with an unforgettable evening of celebrating your successes by honoring the many franchisees who achieved new business highs in 2013, and those who run a top-notch Comfort Keepers operation. Also, this year we honored a franchisee whose employee delivered an outstanding telephone experience to a caller seeking services. All in all, this was a perfect venue for truly discovering our roots of success and our plans for growing for the future.

Photos will be uploaded soon, and sometime during the next week, CKFI will post videos from the keynote sessions. Watch the Friday Flash for more details.

Would you like to share with your team what you learned at the 2014 Leadership Conference? Would you like  to use one of the presentations at an in-service event or another training event? 

Find everything you need on the Member's site. You can download copies of all presentations and handouts at Members > Training > Leadership Conference > Breakouts and Roundtables.  

Look for the May sample issue!

Current Constant Contact subscribers

If you are currently a Constant Contact subscriber, please look for the ready-to-customize May issue of NYCU in your account under email drafts and refer to the introduction block of the email for customization instructions. It should be in your account by Thursday of next week.

Get free Word versions

Word versions of the three articles are available on 

Member's > CK Brand > PR > 2014 News You Can Use (NYCU).

Sign up for Constant Contact

If you do not currently receive the email-ready version of NYCU to send to referral sources, signing up is easy. All you need is an account with Constant Contact. The benefits of having this ready-to-use email are numerous:

• Email is formatted and branded.
• Email already contains articles. All you need to do is add a greeting and personalized content for "About Us."
• The email will be automatically loaded with the contact information you provide under the "My Settings" section of your Constant Contact account.
• You can include relevant links and links to your franchise's social media sites.
• Sending is easy: Just add your distribution list and schedule the email to go out. You can send it immediately or set it on a timer.

Click here for a free 60-day trial with Constant Contact. Please use this link to be associated with Comfort Keepers^®.  

The cost of an account is dependent on the number of contacts you send to:

• 0-500              $15 a month
• 501- 2500       $30 a month
• 2501-5000      $50 a month

As part of the partnership you are entitled to deeper discounts of 20% if you prepay six months and 25% if you prepay for a year.

You can also find the Constant Contact link on the Member's site. Just scroll down and look for NYCU on the bottom left-hand side of the home page.

If you have any questions, please contact Lisa Marie Hayes, Communications Manager, at LisaMHayes@ComfortKeepers.com.

Are you interested in learning how you can better reach and keep customers and referral sources through strategic email campaigns? Would you like to learn how you can make the News You Can Use (NYCU) work for you? Then join us for a webinar hosted by Constant Contact on May 8 at 12 p.m. EDT. They will give you information about using their services, creating successful email campaigns, and integrating emails with social media. You can preregister for the webinar here.

If you have any questions, please contact Lisa Marie Hayes, Communications Manager, at LisaMHayes@ComfortKeepers.com.

Personalizing the back panel of brochures ensures your customers can reach you, but to ensure all materials are standard across all print and digital materials, there are a few guidelines to follow. 

Proofreading your customizations to ensure they comply with the following styles will help to speed up the approval process and get your materials to you faster:

• Use parenthesis around area codes followed by a space, no dash:

Example: (555) 555-5555

• Capitalize the first letter of each word in URL (This makes the URL easier to read.):

Example:  RaccoonCity-123.ComfortKeepers.com

• Capitalize the first letter of each word in email addresses (This also makes them easier to read.):

Examples: JohnDoe@ComfortKeepers.com

                  JDoe@ComfortKeepers.com

Great news for our mountain and west coast franchisees: Standard Register is extending their customer service hours to 8 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. CDT, 6 p.m. MDT, 5 p.m. PDT), Monday through Friday.

Now you can have your questions answered or get help placing your order on the SMARTworks^® portal at times that better fit your schedule. Please note that to accommodate this change Standard Register has a new customer service number for Comfort Keepers^®' accounts:

(800) 558-4532.

If you have questions, please contact Terry Carity, Marketing Project and Traffic Manager, at TerryCarity@ComfortKeepers.com.   

Free leads are like money in your pocket, so what are you waiting for? Be part of the healthcare continuum and join the Centipede Health Network. The Centipede Health Network is the first national home- and community-based services network that connects patients with qualified providers.

Becoming part of this network gives you several advantages:

• It's free! Centipede is not a paid lead-generation service, so there is no cost to participate.
• Your Comfort Keepers^® location will become a preferred provider within an organization that has passed National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)-level credentialing standards.
• Your Comfort Keepers' information will be accessed by health plans, commercial long-term care plans, self-insured individuals, accountable care organizations, and private pay patients seeking in-home care services.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain prominence in the healthcare marketplace. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Click here to read more about the strategic relationship. 

To join Centipede, download and fill out the provider application and email the completed forms to Nicole Bond, Senior Project Manager at Centipede, at JoinCentipede@Heops.com, fax them to 

(866) 421-4135, or mail them to

Centipede Contracting

P.O. Box 291707

Nashville, TN 37229

The above forms are also located on Members> CKBrand > Sales > Key Accounts > Healthcare. If you have any questions, please direct them to Nicole at (855) 359-5391.

Long Term Solutions (LTS) is offering franchisees special savings now through May 15, 2014. Enroll in the LTS Select Provider Network and get 14 months for the $299 annual rate!

LTS is a nationally recognized healthcare company that specializes in helping families address the care needs of their loved ones, primarily the elderly. Their services include in-home assessments, care coordination, plan of care development and resource information on local, appropriate care providers. LTS works with long-term care insurance carriers, employers, and directly with families to connect clients with the care they need. In 2013 alone, LTS conducted 45,000 in-home assessments. Their commitment to quality, efficient, effective care is their trademark. If you are wondering just how much your business will stand out in the network, LTS routinely gives long-term care policy holders a maximum of three provider names when seeking long-term care solutions.

To learn more about LTS, enroll in the Select Provider Network, or learn how much business was generated in your area last year, email Michael Grenier at MGrenier@LongTermSol.com. 

Due to new federal regulations, reducing readmission rates has become a number one priority for accountable care organizations (ACOs) in the U.S, which currently serve 15% to 17% of the entire U.S. population. Since ACO participants assume the risk associated with readmissions, they are looking for strategies to ensure their patients remain stable and recover once they are discharged from the hospital. This presents new opportunities for Comfort Keepers^®, especially since the number of ACOs continues to grow, with experts predicting upwards of 1000 ACOs in place by the end of 2015 (read more about ACO growth).

Now is the time to speak with your local ACOs about how Comfort Keepers' services can help provide the care and support their patients need after discharge to allow them to recover successfully at home (see the regional breakdown of ACOs).  Don't let this opportunity pass you by. Get there before your competitor does. 

Now is a great time to expand your business reach by adding available zip codes to your territory. CKFI is offering financing for qualifying franchisees through its zip code purchase program. Below are the purchase program guidelines:

• The purchase price is $300 per 1,000 in population.
• The zip codes must be contiguous with your existing territory or territories.
• The unassigned zip codes must be part of an open area of zip codes that, when viewed collectively, are not sufficient to form a new territory.

The financing details are as follows:

If you have any questions or would like to move forward with zip code purchases, please contact Larry France at LarryFrance@ComfortKeepers.com or (888) 329-1368.

Join Patrick Hanna of Kaleida Systems, Inc. as he takes you on a journey through the Internet-based client management, scheduling, billing, and payroll system, eRSP™. 

Patrick will guide you through optimizing your business development tracking skills so you can keep up with leads, referral sources, and more. This is a live webinar, so come prepared with questions.

Silverchair has a new learning path, Annual Federal Requirements, designed to help you and your Comfort Keepers^® meet the annual OSHA-required training in understanding bloodborne pathogens and HIPAA. You can assign this new learning path through the Employment Type window on the Update Student Record page. The learning path comprises the following courses:

• HH Introduction to Infection Control
• HH Bloodborne Pathogens
• HIPAA Privacy Rule
• HIPAA Security Rule 

To comply with CKFI Standards and federal regulations, please continue to assign new employees the General Orientation & Onboarding Complete Path, as outlined by the CKFI Orientation & Onboarding Standard, in addition to the new Annual Federal Requirements path. New employees are required to complete the federal requirements courses within 30 days of hire and then annually.

Assigning the Annual Federal Requirements path at the same time as the General Orientation & Onboarding Complete Path will ensure you comply with both the 30-day and annual federal requirements for training.

If you have additional questions, please contact Michael West, Learning & Development Manager, at MichaelWest@ComfortKeepers.com or (937) 665-1321.