6 Tips for Starting a Home Health Care Agency

A home health care agency provides certified nursing and care giving service to clients in their homes.  Generally these clients are the elderly or someone suffering from a disease or disability.  Caregivers typically administer medicine, take patient vital signs, and perform light housework (think: cooking, housekeeping and shopping).

Due to anticipated growth, successful entrepreneurs regularly cite home health care agencies as one of the best small businesses to start.  While this ringing endorsement is encouraging, entrepreneurs entering this field must understand that the industry is highly competitive and well regulated.  The following 6 tips, however, will help you get started.

1. Obtain the Proper Operating Licenses

   An operating license to run a home health care agency is required in most municipalities.  Many municipalities require a number of different documents be included with a licensing application, such as:

   • A formal, written business plan
   • An in-depth description of planned operational policies (tip #2),
   • Resumes of potential hires (tip #3).

   Furthermore, many licensing agencies require that applicants successfully pass a criminal background checks.

2. Defining Policies and Procedures (Licensing Application)

   As part of the licensing application mentioned in tip #1, every home care agency should have written policies defining procedures.  This will lead to consistency in your business and excellent records.  A policies and procedures manual outlines the standards and practices that your team will follow and ensures safety for your clients (as well as legal protections for your organization).

   This manual should include, but is certainly not limited to:

   • Client rights and responsibilities
   • Clinical documentation & practices
   • Patient intake procedures
   • Job descriptions for potential caregivers
   • Hiring rules, regulations, and expectations

3. Finding the Best Staff

   A home health care agency is only as good as the quality of the care its staff provides.  Identifying the best nurses can be a challenge, but there are a number of options available to someone looking to start a business.

   Here at TrackSmart Scheduling, we recommend working with a local community college that offers training to prospective certified nursing aides.  Given the tough economic climate, many of these schools are looking for any opportunity to partner with companies that can provide jobs to their students.

   Another option is to use online tools, such as LinkedIn, to help find caregivers.   With LinkedIn you can actually reach out to prospective nurses directly.

4. Improve Care Quality With Reduced Turnover

   Now that we’ve found the right staff, we need to keep them.  Literally, the quality of the care that you provide is determined by the quality of nurses that you have hired.  The quality of the nurse, is determined by two main factors:

   • The quality of the nurse’s training
   • The amount of experience the nurse has

   When you lose a nurse — potentially to a competitor — it can literally cost your business thousands of dollars.  Unless there are care giving issues, your clients generally want to stay with the same nurse.  By keeping the caregivers they love, you are also keeping your clients happy.

   A simple way to keep your caregivers happy is to provide them with flexibility in their schedule.  Home health care scheduling software, such as TrackSmart Scheduling, can dramatically reduce turnover.

5. Time Keeping Simplifies Billing

   Of of the keys to starting a successful home health care agency is automating employee scheduling, client billing, and time clocking.  TrackSmart Scheduling offers you the ability to easily schedule your employees, as well as track their time and attendance with clients.

   With a tool like TrackSmart Scheduling, you’ll have excellent time record data.  You’ll be able to easily track when your caregivers clock in and out with patient, as well as record any mileage the caregiver has spent travelling to the client’s home.  This information can then be used for both employee payroll, as well as client billing.

6. Marketing Your Agency

   Finding new clients for your home health care business can be very difficult for two reasons.  Mostly importantly, many clients already have a care giver.  Secondly, many home healthcare agencies already have existing relationship with clinics and hospitals in your area.

While advertisements are one way to attract new business, we suggest spending the majority of your time and effort on building your professional network.  This will help you greatly build referral traffic from hospitals, rehab clinics, and social workers.