Hello, I have been an ICU nurse for a couple of years with some home health experience. During the past year I have been seriously interested in starting a home health care business. I have gathered sufficient capital and have sought the help of a business adviser. I am seeking to talk to some of you that have been involved in the field on the challenges you faced starting up and how you went about solving staffing and other growing pains. I thought that in the beginning I could see patients myself and as I grow and acquire more of a client base, I will then hire more nurses. However, my adviser informed me it would be best if I focused on marketing. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from someone more experienced in the field. Thanks in advance!

No experience in the field, but in any business, if you have no clients, you have no business! So I agree that marketing is a priority. Personally, I would also start recruiting RNs and aides. If your marketing is successful, you may have more work than you can handle alone very quickly and will want to scale appropriately. Having a few nurses you can call will help you bridge supply/demand issues so you can focus on marketing versus recruiting.

Now I suggest this as someone not really familiar with home health. If most of the business will be simple visits, then I agree that you can handle it initially and that is the most cost effective way to go (I started a travel nurse agency just that way). But if you run across potential business with more complex patients who need lots of time or even a sitter, having backup personnel available will make your life a lot less stressful.

Ultimately, the goal for anyone wanting to operate a real business and make money off of employees is to have employees do all the work! So you ultimately want to step away from most clinical work and develop your business plan accordingly. If your goal is to primarily employ yourself, your business plan will be different.