How Do I Start a Successful Home Health Care Business?
The generation of people who were born between 1946 and 1964, the baby boomers, are gradually phasing out of the workplace. They are retiring in large numbers and many of them will require special care and services in retirement. This has created a business opportunity for people who can provide healthcare services. How do I start a successful home care Business?
Business and Medicine: Starting Your Own Healthcare Agency
The baby boomer generation is arguably one of the most motivated and productive generations that the work environment ever saw. They are likely to work extra hours without complaining.
These healthcare professionals can go to the houses of the baby boomers to take care of them and make sure that they are healthy. Major services offered would range from preparing meals, to helping them change their dress, and driving them around. If you think that you can and you will take advantage of this opportunity to begin your health care agency, here are six tips to help you start your health care agency.
Create a Business Plan
How to Start Writing Business Policies and Procedures
Before you start any business, the first thing for you to do is to come up with a plan. This plan will determine the structure of the business and how you are going to operate. The plan will help you create a brand that will distinguish you from health care agencies. Here is what your plan will look like.
First, when you write a business plan for a startup, you should include an executive summary that explains what your agency does. This is a brief introduction and you will elaborate more as you go further. Your business plan will also explain your goals, mission, vision, and the services which you provide.
Having described your business, the next thing to do is to create a marketing plan; how you plan to create awareness, engage with customers, and then acquire customers for your business. And finally, you need to have a breakdown of the resources that you will need – capital, human, facilities, and equipment – and how you plan to raise funds to get all of the resources needed.
Register Your Business
Depending on the state where you plan to establish your health care agency, there are certain requirements that you need to meet to register your business. You need to get your business registered for you to be certified to operate in that state. Some of your clients will be using Medicare or Medicaid and you will be unable to get paid if your business is not registered. You also need to get a tax ID and an NPI (National Provider Identification) number.
Acquire Medicare and Medicaid Certification
Getting certified means dealing with the government. You need to also get certified at the federal and state level with Medicare and Medicaid. This is because of potential customers who have subscribed to their plans. You need to begin the process of certification as soon as possible because the certification takes a long time to be complete; up to a year.
Certification will require developing health care policies and procedures that conform to Medicare and Medicaid guidelines and also your state’s requirements. This includes maintaining qualified staff, HIPPA privacy, medical care policies, patient and employee safety, health care quality, and more. There is no federal standard and every state has their own health care policies and procedures requirements, although most states have pretty much require the same thing.
Hire Qualified Staff
You need health care workers to run your agency so after getting all the certifications that you need, it is time to source for members of staff. You want to get people who will be good ambassadors of your agency wherever they are working. To do this, you need to do a background check on all applicants and make sure that the people you want to hire have successfully passed any of PANCE, NCLEX RN and USMLE Step 2 CK and are certified to practice. You can also check their social media footprint to learn about the kind of person that they are.
Find Clients
At this point, you are all set for operation and all you need now are clients to work with. This is one of the hardest steps for businesses that provide services, but good marketing will help your business grow. Most of your customers will come from referrals so you need to do a lot of work to gain the customers who will do the referring. An effective marketing strategy will be extremely helpful to do this.
Obtain Capital
Getting capital to run your health care agency is essential to run a business. Getting paid from insurers like Medicare or Medicaid can take time and you will need to pay staff and take care of other needs. Bootstrapping your startup will be difficult. You need to get capital that will be enough to run the business for a while till you make your own capital and begin to generate steady profits.
Starting a Successful Home Health Care Business
When you begin to make profits from your health care business, you smile to yourself that you have established a successful company. However, Rome was not built in a day, so it is very unlikely that you will start getting profits the week or the month when you start your business. You have to consistently provide quality service such that people begin to recommend your healthcare agency to baby boomers and others who will need your service.
I appreciate your suggestion that qualified staff and registered businesses obtain certification. Gain clients in the capital to accelerate your growth.