Our Philosophy
Most people who are reading this are extremely busy. Maybe you are in need of a dietitian right away. Maybe you are looking for a better option for your residents' nutrition care than you currently have. Those who contact us are always trying to solve a problem or meet a need. Consultant provider selection is often made based on hourly rate, name recognition and previous experience. Quality of service can fall lower on the priority list, leading to disappointing results.
Dietary Difference® was created to correct longstanding and pervasive concerns the nutrition consulting industry consistently fails to address. However, the rules of engagement have changed. Dietitians are not keeping up with expectations imposed by the Megarule and their facilities are paying the price with poor survey results. In our current climate of increased regulation and scrutiny, simply meeting industry standards – often missed or ignored -- just isn’t good enough.
We like to say, “It’s not that we do what others can’t, we do what others don’t”
This requires a commitment to staying ahead of the curve, assisting our clients with the most current information available, providing training where necessary and holding ourselves accountable for our outcomes. That is what service means to us. Your residents deserve nothing less.
Our services
QAPI / Attention to Quality Measures
The number one complaint we hear from potential clients is that not enough attention is paid to quality measures that impact the facility’s survey results, reputation and bottom line. Our facilities perform 50% above state and national averages in the areas of: (more…)
Nutrition Care Management
We provide full-spectrum nutrition care with a focus on excellence, service, and optimal outcomes. We operate in long-term care, skilled nursing, rehab/post-acute care, assisted living and group home facilities. Whether you need a long-term contract (more…)
Consultant Dietitians
Dietary Difference® dietitians are the heart and soul of our company. You can count on your Dietary Difference® consultant to provide expert medical nutrition therapy, applying current standards of care and best practices. our consultants are trained to incorporate (more…)
Food and Nutrition Services Oversight
Whether your Director of Food and Nutrition Services is a facility employee or contractor, your Dietary Difference® consultant is the license-holder under which your FNS department operates. (more…)
Survey Readiness Program
All Dietary Difference® consultants are trained to implement our Survey Readiness Program. This may also be contracted as a stand-alone service. Our Survey Readiness Program includes: (more…)
Post-Survey Plans of Correction
After a difficult survey, facilities often go overboard in their efforts to regain compliance, designing and committing to plans of correction that are far more complicated and restrictive than necessary. (more…)
Our Competitors...
The Dietary Difference...
Hands-off management style, requires the facility to adapt to the consultant’s needs and work style
Consultants receive on-site training to ensure seamless integration with your facility culture. We adapt to the needs of your management and staff
No direct oversight
Owner and management conduct monthly documentation review to assure that our protocols are being followed and our contractual obligations to our clients are being met
Consultants with little or no experience and training
Consultants have prior long-term care experience and are tested for competency before hiring, then receive advanced and specialized training from our management
High level of consultant turnover
Dietary Difference has an extraordinarily high retention rate. Our consultants assume personal responsibility for their accounts providing consistent service to our clients
Consultants and management are hard to reach
You will have direct mobile phone access to your consultant, with management on call as backup, providing 24/7 availability. We provide on-site support during surveys
Lack of Documentation
Our reporting has been designed utilizing current surveyor protocols to ensure compliance. Visit reports detail changes to residents’ nutrition care plans and weekly weight changes. Monthly summaries inform you of each resident’s weight status, significant weight changes, dialysis and pressure area documentation and include a comprehensive kitchen audit
Lack of collaboration and communication with facility staff and families
Your Dietary Difference consultant is part of your team. We form relationships and coordinate recommendations with doctors, nursing staff, residents, families and Food and Nutrition Services resulting in better care, better outcomes and a higher level of resident/family satisfaction
No coordination with outside nutrition-related services
Dietary Difference consultants are actively involved in your residents’ outpatient care. We coordinate with dialysis centers, hospice services providers, wound and GI clinics and others to ensure continuity of care between outside providers and your facility
Lack of follow-up on facility and family concerns
Our protocols ensure that nutrition-related concerns expressed by your IDT or family receive top priority. We routinely contact family to inform of changes in nutrition or weight status and can assist with end-of-life decision making, including nutrition advance directives
No attention to quality measures
Our standards of practice include built-in methods of insuring accurate weight documentation, reductions in supplement usage, and increased dining services accuracy
What our clients say
“The only dietitians that combine the best clinical support with the bottom-line reductions of an account.”
“They have delivered the best food service and clinical support to residents, families and staff, while consistently reducing costs in all our facilities for many years.”
“Their knowledge, service and follow-through make the residents’ quality of life better and nurses lives easier – especially mine!”
“We’ve worked with many different consulting companies over the years, and Dietary Difference is by far the best.”
“Whenever they give us dietary recommendations for an issue, they take joint ownership of the solution.”
“You guys actually do everything you promised.”
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About us
Dietary Difference offers nutrition care management services in healthcare facilities in southern and central Ohio. We provide full-spectrum dietary consulting services including:
- Placement of registered dietitians, dietetic technicians and dietary managers
- Clinical nutrition and FNS department oversight
- Staff development
Lynn Dowd founded the company in 1988. While working as a food service director, Lynn utilized consulting dietitians in her facilities. Over and over, the contractors exhibited what Lynn came to call the “Consultant Mentality.”A “good enough is good enough mindset,” I’m doing all that can be done in the time they give me…
- Disconnection from the needs and goals of the facility..
- Newly licensed dietitians with no experience, or seasoned dietitians set in their ways and unwilling to learn…
- Limited ongoing dietitian training, no clinical oversight…
- No dietitian focus on cost reduction…
- Poor customer service from the consulting company…
Concerned and frustrated with the low level of expertise, lack of consistency and poor corporate oversight she experienced with consulting dietitians, she decided to start her own consulting firm and Dietary Difference® was born.