Most home care agency owners know their revenue numbers. Fewer know their readmission rates. Susan Kahlau, CEO and owner of Visiting Angels in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, knows both and she’ll tell you why the second number explains the first.
“I’m one of those people that if I make a decision, it’s usually based on my gut instincts, but also data.“
After launching with Sensi in 2023, Susan’s agency reduced its overall readmission rate from 4.74% in 2024 to 4.35% in 2025. Clients who used Sensi finished 2025 with a hospitalization rate below 1%. Without it, the clients had a 5% or higher rate. Revenue over the same period went from $4.2 million to $7.2 million.
She tracks all of it.
“I’m one of those people that if I make a decision, it’s usually based on my gut instincts, but also data,” Susan said. “And then I need proof that my decision was worth what I was investing in.”
Why readmission rates matter more than you think
“I get to say, here’s what our readmission rates are. And here’s some of your clients we helped prevent from going into the hospital.”
Readmission and hospitalization rates are more than clinical metrics. For home care agencies building referral relationships with hospitals and short-term rehab facilities, they are the currency of credibility.
Susan understood this from the start. “I get to say, here’s what our readmission rates are. And here’s some of your clients we helped prevent from going into the hospital,” she said. “It’s mission alignment with your referral sources. They don’t want them to come back either.”
The internal comparison no agency should ignore
What makes Susan’s data compelling is she runs her own internal control group: clients with and without Sensi, managed by the same team, in the same market. In 2025, Sensi clients had hospitalization rates below 1%. Without Sensi: 5% or higher.
That fivefold difference is exactly what a discharge planner needs to justify an exclusive referral relationship. When a referral source sends her a client, she closes the loop: here is what we detected, here is what we prevented. That feedback loop is how she earns the next referral
Three clients. Three interventions. One pattern.
Susan’s approach to readmission rate data is visible in how her team manages individual clients. Here are three of her customer stories.
”We were able to improve her quality for her end of life.”
1. Madeline, 90, came to Visiting Angels as a companion care client. They saw her three days a week. After Sensi was installed in her home, the system began detecting gastrointestinal distress. Susan’s team encouraged a physician visit. The result was a cancer diagnosis.
Working with a hospice agency, they used Sensi to monitor Madeline’s pain and symptoms in real time, updating her care plan as her condition progressed. “We were able to improve her quality for her end of life,” Susan said. The hospice partner took notice too. That proactive, documented approach strengthened a referral relationship that continues today.
2. Pete, 92, had Alzheimer’s. His wife had been his sole caregiver for years and was resistant to outside help. Susan’s team started small: two days a week and they installed Sensi in the home. Within weeks, the system flagged ADL (activities of daily living) difficulties and fall risk. Susan’s team visited in person, had a conversation with Pete’s wife, and referred him to physical and occupational therapy.
As Pete’s Alzheimer’s progressed, Sensi detected hallucinations. Susan’s team responded not with a phone call but another in-person visit. They added care hours, gave his wife much-needed respite, and adjusted his medications when GI issues appeared, preventing a hospitalization. “His journey is much different having Sensi in the home than it would be if not,” Susan said.
3. Faith, 85, had Parkinson’s disease and a history of chronic UTIs that put her in the hospital five times in the year before she came to Visiting Angels. Within her first two weeks of care, Sensi detected dizziness consistent with fall risk. Susan’s team worked with Faith’s son to get her blood thinner adjusted. She didn’t fall. On the UTI front, Sensi continued flagging early indicators, allowing the team to intervene with antibiotics before infections escalated. The result: zero hospitalizations due to UTI for the entire duration of her care.
Length of service: the metric that changes your revenue model
Susan raised one additional data point that often gets overlooked in conversations about outcomes: length of service.
Since implementing Sensi, her agency’s average length of service has increased by 50%. That number does not appear on a clinical dashboard, but it is fundamental to the business of home care. Longer engagements mean more stable revenue, lower acquisition costs per client, and better outcomes. It’s all because continuity of care is what makes proactive intervention possible.
”The data speaks for itself.”
Revenue went from $4.2 million in 2023 to $6 million in 2024 to $7.2 million in 2025. When her home office asked what changed, Susan pointed to the data: length of service up, hospitalizations down, readmission rates down.
“The data speaks for itself,” she said.
What tracking readmission rates looks like in practice
Susan’s approach requires consistency. A few things she does other agency owners can copy:
- Track hospitalizations and readmission rates now, even before you have comparison data. The baseline matters. Two years from now, your before-and-after story is your most powerful referral conversation.
- Share data with your referral sources. Do not wait for them to ask. When a patient they referred to you avoids a readmission, close the loop. Call, email, share the outcome.
- Use supervisory visits when Sensi surfaces something significant. Susan’s team made this a practice. Face-to-face conversations with family members, particularly resistant ones like Pete’s wife, build the trust that makes difficult conversations possible later.
- Document everything as a care report. Sensi’s care summaries make this easier, but the habit of documentation is what turns clinical data into a referral asset.
The referral relationship, rebuilt
Home care agencies have historically competed for referrals on reputation, things difficult to measure or replicate. Susan’s model is different. Her competitive advantage is tied to the outcomes her referral partners care about most.
A readmission rate below 5%. A hospitalization rate below 1% for Sensi clients. A 50% increase in length of service. Zero hospitalizations for a client with a documented history of five UTI-related hospitalizations in a single year.
These are more than talking points. These are proof. If you want to learn how Sensi can help your agency build this kind of clinical evidence and turn it into a referral advantage, contact us for a demo.
FAQs
What is a home care readmission rate and why does it matter?
A home care readmission rate tracks what percentage of clients who were recently discharged from a hospital or facility return to the hospital while under your agency’s care. It matters because referral sources: hospitals, rehab facilities, discharge planners — use this metric to evaluate whether a home care agency is truly reducing risk for their patients. Agencies that can demonstrate low readmission rates are positioned as clinical partners, not just service providers.
AI-powered virtual care tools like Sensi continuously monitor clients in the home, detecting early signs of health changes, dizziness, GI distress, behavioral shifts, fall risk, before they escalate into hospitalizations. By alerting care teams to act proactively, these tools enable intervention at the earliest possible moment, when the cost and disruption of hospitalization can still be avoided.
At minimum, agencies should track hospitalization and readmission rates. Agencies that also track length of service and segment outcomes by care model can create a comparative data narrative that referral sources find persuasive.
