Do you want to start your own home healthcare business? The sector related to home healthcare is one of the fastest-growing when it comes to the healthcare industry. With more and more baby boomers needing assistance in their daily lives, the demand for home healthcare agencies is on the rise.
What Kind of Services Are Provided By Home Healthcare Businesses?
Home healthcare businesses provided medical treatment as well as assistive care to patients in their homes. Some patients need additional help to lead their normal lives at home.
As a home healthcare service provider, you can provide both medical as well as non-medical services. Examples of medical care include caring for wounds as well as providing assistive care. You can also provide non-medical care, such as housekeeping as well as preparing meals for patients.
Starting a Home Healthcare Business
Here is everything you need to do, if you want to start your very own home healthcare business:
1. Creating a Business Entity
The first thing you’ll need to do is choose the business structure your healthcare agency will fall under. You can choose to run your business as a sole proprietor, or as a partner. You can also form a limited liability company. You should take care when choosing your business entity, as the amount of tax you’ll pay will be dependent on this.
2. Get Your EIN
Also known as your Employer Identification Number, this is a number of nine digits that will be issued to by the IRS, or the Internal Revenue Service. EINs are issued to businesses that operate in the country for purposes of identification.
3. Secretary of State
The location you choose to as well as the structure of your business will be important when it comes to registering your business. In many states, all you’ll need to do is file your business name with the local as well as the state government.
4. Write a Business Plan
Now that your business is registered, it’s time to write a business plan. A business plan is like a corporate dossier that contains all the essential information about your home healthcare business. You’ll be including everything from your marketing plan to your operational plan, and even your financial plan, in your business plan.
5. Bank Account for Business
You’ll also need to open a separate bank account for your home healthcare business. Consider opening a checking out, as well as an account for your credit card.
6. Obtain Funding
You’ll need to secure working capital if you want to ensure that your business doesn’t end up closing. The start-up costs associated with running a home healthcare business can be in the hundreds of thousands, so you should have a solid financial plan ready.
7. Licensing Requirements of Your State
The forms you need to fill out and the licenses you need can vary from state to state. This is why you should consider checking out what the requirements in your state are, pertaining to operating a home healthcare business.
8. Banks and Investors
If you don’t have enough working capital, then consider getting a loan to start your business. Both banks, as well as investors, can help you secure the money you need to run your home healthcare business. The business plan you wrote should be handy here, as banks and investors tend to ask to see your business plan.
9. Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan should be targeted toward people who are likely to be your clients. The first of these are older adults as well as seniors. The adult children of seniors can also hire you for your services and should also fall within your target market. Relatives of seniors as well as people with disabilities should also be in your target market.
You should have a website that is SEO integrated, as well as business social media profiles. These can help you connect with your target market better.
10. Plan for Recruitment and Retention
You will also need a plan that helps you to keep the caregivers that you have. You’ll need to understand their needs and ensure that they have a good working environment. By being responsive to them and responsible for them, you can retain your caregivers longer.
11. Business Operations
In order to make sure that your home healthcare business is up and running, you’ll need to set up operations for the back office as well. This includes billing as well as payroll and scheduling as well.
12. Drafting Formal Policies
You should create formal policies that cover the following areas;
- Client admissions
- Caring for clients
- Scheduling
- Payroll
- Orientation
- Training
- Client billing
- The right and responsibilities for clients
13. Hiring the Founding Employees
You should try to recruit employees who have the same vision as you and can provide for clients in a way that positively uplifts your business’ name. Consider hiring nursing assistants who are certified, as well as home health aides. The quality of your hires should be high, as your employees will be the face of your business to a lot of your clients.
14. Caregiver Training
There are compliance requirements that you will need to meet. And these tend to vary from state to state. So, consider doing research on what these requirements are, and ensure that your employees are certified and licensed as well.
Conclusion
Aside from all this, you should also consider home care business insurance. This is as your business is vulnerable to certain risks, such as getting sued by a client. Home care business insurance helps you protect your business, as well as your finances. If you want to learn more about home care business insurance, then
