Starting a Home Health Aide Business
Home health aides provide personal care and health-related services to people who require more help than family or friends can provide. Home health services often enable those served to remain in their communities instead of residing institutions. Many aides come courtesy of government agencies and nonprofit organizations certified by Medicare, but for-profit companies can also provide services successfully. Starting a home health aide business requires careful planning, a marketing strategy, trained personnel and adequate start-up funding. Knowledge of federal laws and your state's regulations also plays an essential role.
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Instructions
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Develop a comprehensive business plan. Research the geographic area you intend to serve to determine the extent and nature of the services people require. Determine the availability of trained aides and nearby educational institutions that can provide training to support your company's inevitable turnover of personnel. Explore the regulations under which you must operate, as well as any constraints.
Plan the structure of the business before you begin. You may wish to hire a professional social worker to complement the client assessments performed by your nurse, for example, or you may pay an auto allowance to the aides to ensure they have adequate insurance if they need to drive clients to the doctor.
Seek out successful home health aide businesses in other communities, and explore how they handle staffing, motivation of personnel, turnover, transportation, supplies, client income, relationships with families and doctors, physical safety and other important issues.
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Develop a realistic marketing plan. If home health aide services already exist in your proposed catchment area, research to determine how you will compete. You cannot compete on price with agencies that provide free services, but you may find families who need assistance more frequently than they offer. Provide services that are better or more complete than those provided by nonprofit organizations, and you may win clients.
Keep in mind when developing your marketing plan that you will have several customers to please for each individual you intend to serve. In addition to your actual clients, you'll need to convince their family and physicians of your company's merits. Lobby for hospital discharge planners and geriatric care managers to recommend you. With each client you serve successfully, your reputation will grow; word-of-mouth advertising makes for an extremely effective sales device.
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Research how you will obtain the monies you will need to start and operate until you become profitable. Explore state and local funding that may be available. With a good business plan, you may be able to get investors or a bank to underwrite your start-up costs. If you choose to take out a loan, seek a Small Business Administration--guaranteed loan.
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Assess future prospects carefully before adding staff. Clients move to long-term care facilities, are hospitalized, die and for other reasons no longer need your services. You cannot afford to pay staff who have no clients to serve.
Test your plan constantly. Review decisions you made about transportation, staff turnover and relationships with doctors and hospitals to see whether they still apply. Decide at what point you will need billing and accounting assistance. Determine if your facility requirements have changed.
Your most important task is to ensure your clients get the help they need when they need it.
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Tips & Warnings
Comprehensive insurance is a must.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit elderly/man and woman leaving hand in hand image by L. Shat from Fotolia.com
