How to Start Home Care Business
Home Care Business is a unique business in major cities.
With the growing rate of the number of the senior citizens in our cities, establishing a home care or senior care business can be a good one for people who like to touch lives.
It is not uncommon to have senior citizen whose children have grown to form their own family. It is easier for women to live with any of their children. But what happens to men? They are lonely at home having no children around them anymore. Even if the elderly woman stays with one of her children, that is not a guarantee that she will enjoy adequate care. The children may be busy executives who don’t have time to give their mum adequate attention she desires. This type of situation is common in major cities around the world. The truth is that most of the senior parents still prefer living in their own home. The only challenge is that they cannot do some chores by themselves any longer. That is why home care business will continue to thrive.
There are two types of home care business namely medical skilled home health care business and non-medical home care business. If you want to run skilled health home care business, you need to have medical background with relevant certification. Non-medical home care business does not necessarily require that you have medical background. I think the reason why people don’t consider home care business as a great small business idea is that they think it is restricted to nurses. As a non-medical caregiver, basically your caregiving services may comprise personal care, assistance with daily living activities, meal preparation, housekeeping, medication reminders and transportation. Please note that medication reminder is different from running medical skilled home care. If you have sufficient capital, you can decide to buy a franchise instead of starting your own caregiving business from the scratch. However caregiving business is a home business you can start with low investment capital. If you start your own home care business instead of buying a franchise, you will be independent. You don’t need to pay any franchise fee or royalty.
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Key success factors
- Strong communication and organizational skills
- Home care business experience
- Well planned business strategy
- Compassion
- Medical experience is an added advantage but not a prerequisite
How to start home care business
Develop a business plan
To succeed in the caregiving business, you need well planned business strategy, just like any other business. You need to plan your senior care business from the beginning.
Register a business name
Even though you want to run your senior care business as a home business, you still need to formalise it. You should choose a good business name for the senior care business. The name should appeal to your customers. It should signify that you care. You should ensure that you have the business name registered. In addition to business name registration costs, you will need to incur some minor costs such as cost of printing and stationery.
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Marketing
Above everything, you need to market your caregiving business. Introduce your services in your local communities, churches and other organizations you associate with. You can make use of free listing on online directories.
Recruit and train caregivers
By the time you start having customers, you will need to recruit and train caregivers. This is the only way you can boost your home care business. If you want to do it alone, you can only earn a little income. But if you want to run your home care business as business indeed, you need to recruit other caregivers and get them properly trained. As part of your branding, you can provide them uniforms.