What Most Operators Miss: Intake is Part of Your Sales Team — How to Align Intake and Marketing for Maximum Admissions

If you manage a multi-location home health operation or oversee a PE-backed portfolio, you already know the big levers for growth: market penetration, operational efficiency, and admissions percentage. But there’s one lever most operators underestimate — and it’s sitting right in front of you every day.

Your intake team is part of your sales team.
Not just a back-office admin function. Not just “processing paperwork.” They are your final closers. And if they aren’t aligned with marketing, you’re leaving admissions — and millions in revenue — on the table.

When Intake and Marketing Speak the Same Language, Growth Follows

Think about your marketers. They’re out in the field building trust, securing relationships, and creating the momentum that gets a referral sent your way. Then what happens? In many agencies, that referral lands in intake… where the marketer’s work effectively ends.

The problem?

• Different systems: Marketing tracks their work in a CRM, or by their phone, or pen and paper, while intake lives in the EMR or — worse — a spreadsheet.
• No shared communication channel: Intake might update “admitted” or “non-admit” in their system, but marketing has no real-time visibility into what’s happening.
• Context gets lost: Intake often doesn’t know this is a referral marketing has been working on for 6 months.

When intake and marketing work from the same information set, share the same communication channels, and operate as one team — you close more referrals, faster.

The Data is Clear: Aligning Intake Can Drive a 20% Lift in Admissions %

We’ve seen this over and over:

• One multi-location operator integrated intake and marketing on a shared referral pipeline platform.
• They gained full visibility into every referral’s status, from first touch to SOC.
• Intake could follow up on missing info instantly, marketers could thank referral sources immediately, and leadership could see leading indicators in real time.

Result:

• 20% lift in admission % in under 6 months.
• Equivalent to millions in incremental annual revenue.
• Improved referral source satisfaction and stronger repeat business.

Speed + Clarity = Competitive Advantage

Hospital discharge planners and SNF social workers don’t just want you to take their patients — they want you to be fast and reliable.

When intake can:

• See which referrals are pending, missing info, or awaiting authorization.
• Instantly access the referring contact’s details to resolve issues.
• Alert marketing when a referral needs a relationship-based touch.

…you move faster, look sharper, and earn more repeat referrals.

Stop Treating Intake Like a Separate Department

In most other industries, the “final closer” — the person who seals the deal — has full context from the sales process. Imagine a VP of Sales closing a seven-figure deal without knowing the client’s history or what’s been promised. You’d call it insane.

That’s exactly how many home health agencies run intake.

Marketers are your SDRs and account executives. Intake is your account manager who closes the deal — the patient admission. Treat them as part of the same revenue team.

The Next Step: Audit Your Referral Pipeline

You can’t fix what you can’t see. A Referral Pipeline Audit will tell you:

• Where referrals are dropping off.
• How quickly your intake team is responding.
• Whether your marketers and intake are aligned — or working in silos.
• How your admission % compares to benchmark.

For multi-location and PE-backed operators, the gains are real and fast. One change to your process could mean hundreds of additional admits per year.

Request your Referral Pipeline Audit today and find out how much revenue your agency is leaving on the table.