Starting An Agency

Nurses Entrepreneurs

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I'm exploring the possibility of starting an agency. I've worked agency for several years in an urban area with many hospitals (and agencies). I have a pretty good feel for what hospitals are paying agencies for nurses. I am thinking about a small recruitment of 12-20 experienced RNs, most of whom I have worked with and know to be excellent caregivers. And they are motivated to work. I know that I can charge less than any agency in the area, and at the same time pay my nurses more than anyone else, and still make money. My overhead will be very low, as I will run this from an office at home. I'm prepared for long hours and legwork. Certainly there are obstacles, not the least of which relates to payroll. I do not have the cash reserves to buffer against hospital billing cycles which can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks or more. Obviously, I want my nurses getting paid on time.

Any folks out there running an agency, or experienced in these matters? I'd appreciate any feedback.

Have you ever worked agency?

White Glove is an international agency that recruits from all over the world.

Every facility will pay different rates, there is not one figure. You need to do your own negotiating for your contracts.

Right now iam just trying to understand the business and how it runs. i know that I will need lots of money in order to pay the nurses but i also know that there are funding companies that that can help me do this. Can you please tell me something? I want to know after I have recruited some nurses willing to work for me and after I land some accounts in hospitals etc. When a client hospital is looking for a nurse for per diem work how much in advance do they call, usually when do they contact you . do they call you 24 hrs before they need a nurse? what happens if they call and you think you have someone to fill a position but then for some reason they cant make it what is usually done? I want to know a little bit about how the business is ran from the inside so that when I set up my business I can create my own unique selling point that will deal with these types of issues

Ir completely comes down to the arrangement that you have with a particular facility. They may schedule the same nurse one month in advance, or just phone you at the last minute. How they first set up anything with you, will depend quite a bit on the nurses that you employ.

Another name for agency is "staff relief"---- which means you can be called a the last moment to fill a shift when they get a call-in. Many hospitals will have an agreement in place that if they cancel the nurse within two hours of the start of the shift, then they are required to pay for four hours. But on the same token, if the nurse that you have scheduled cancels at the last minute, you owe the hospital for four hours if you can't get them replaced.

Do you actually have any experience in working agency or per diem?

Hi,

I've started my own agency and have learned quite a bit in the last 5 years....e-mail me if u want more info.

Hi there

Can you tell me the title of the administator you would contact if you want to advertise you temp agency for the first time. in other words when you contact a hospital or nursing home and you want to land a contract. Who do you ask to speak toif you only have the hospitals general phone number

Specializes in ER, ICU.
Hi there

Can you tell me the title of the administator you would contact if you want to advertise you temp agency for the first time. in other words when you contact a hospital or nursing home and you want to land a contract. Who do you ask to speak toif you only have the hospitals general phone number

Sherese:

I think you would benefit from working at an agency and discovering the answers to many of the questions you pose AND many more.

Michael

I still find it amazing, that people who truly "do not know the business" are those who seek out contracts.

Nurses, can, and do, get their own contracts and benefit from cutting out the middle man in Agency Nursing.

Hello. Everyone. I am a nursing student graduating in Sept (god-willing). And am working on a project in Entrepreneurship in Nursing. I found this thread which relates to it. Can some of you out there tell me the pro's and con's of starting your own business? Also, what do you need to suceed in it? Thanks, much appreciated!!

Specializes in ER, ICU.
I still find it amazing, that people who truly "do not know the business" are those who seek out contracts.

Nurses, can, and do, get their own contracts and benefit from cutting out the middle man in Agency Nursing.

Amen sister!

I'm exploring the possibility of starting an agency. I've worked agency for several years in an urban area with many hospitals (and agencies). I have a pretty good feel for what hospitals are paying agencies for nurses. I am thinking about a small recruitment of 12-20 experienced RNs, most of whom I have worked with and know to be excellent caregivers. And they are motivated to work. I know that I can charge less than any agency in the area, and at the same time pay my nurses more than anyone else, and still make money. My overhead will be very low, as I will run this from an office at home. I'm prepared for long hours and legwork. Certainly there are obstacles, not the least of which relates to payroll. I do not have the cash reserves to buffer against hospital billing cycles which can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks or more. Obviously, I want my nurses getting paid on time.

Any folks out there running an agency, or experienced in these matters? I'd appreciate any feedback.

Hello, I am looking forward to opening a health care agency. Can you tell me what costs are involved in doing it?

Both me and my husband are independent contractors. Technically speaking, all agencies are independent contractors. My husband is a construction contractor. I took his 14 years of experience and applied it to nursing and am now a nursing contractor. Like my husband, sometimes I am the only employee of the business. Like my husband, sometimes I hire a few employees when the need arises.

As a nursing contractor, I work out of my home; as do many independent contractors including my husband. I started off as the only employee and had very little expense. One month, I paid for my yellow page advertising; the next month I paid for insurance for the LLC so that I could hire employees when the need arose. Cost can be spread out as you earn money. My entire start-up expense is paid in full and within my first two months, I recouped the entire cost working no more than 12 days. We printed up our own advertising flyers right here on the computer as we needed them. We designed and printed my business cards right here on the computer. They both look very professional and cost us a fraction of having others do it (and if want to change something, I'm not stuck with hundreds of cards). I now have a contract with two facilities and am negotiating with another.

Of course you do have the option of borrowing tons of money, renting a fancy office, buying a new computer instead of making due, ordering 500 business cards all at one time, and hiring a professional marketing agent, etc. You can run your start-up costs up as high as you like.

As to the question of what to charge, we know that there is no one answer. In preparing to go independent, I simply started asking the DON's and staffing personal at various facilities "how bad is agency zyz ripping you off?" I was surprised at the information they were willing to divulge. The love to moan and complain about how bad the facility was being ripped off. The cheapest rate we have found is $65 for an RN for our area. Every facility we have talked to in the last year has made it a point to tell us about all the extras that agencies add above the basic rate for things like a nurse working as "charge", shift differential, housing costs and travel expenses. In our area, the agencies pass everything on to the facility. So there is room to negotiate and maneuver.

Check out the information on these threads also:

Independent Nurses providing medical care?

PRN vs Independent Contract

Independent Contracting and Protecting Your License

RN Independent Contractor

This information helps you out.

good info

good info

Thank you very much. Your information is very helpful. I wish you the best for you and your business.

Marius

Hello to all. I am also wanting to start an agency in the DFW, Tx area. I'm currently working through the loan process (working capital) and would greatly appreciate any helpful information giiven.

Thanks

In my opinion, if you have not already done a very complete analysis of your competition, market pricing, market utilization and ALREADY touched base with some facilities in the area currently using agency to get an idea if they would even consider adding another agency, researched the cost of ALL of the required insurances (which some, like work comp and liability you will find it challenging to get at all!) and finally with all this info contructed very complete break-even analyses and budgets leading to the completion of a very strong business plan you are going to find it very difficult to get the funding you need to operate, unless you are getting it from an independantly wealthy individual that enjoys throwing caution to the wind.

If you haven't worked in the business at least at the office manager level for a couple of years minimum, have a strong accounting and finance background, an excellent grasp of cash flow management, can sell, can negotiate complex contracts, can understand margins and what you need to truly be profitable, can make collection calls when clients run slow in paying or don't seem to want to pay you at all, have the ability to make many many forms, understand computers and networking basics, understand current labor laws fully and soooo much more.... You're in for a REAL challenge. You'll need to hire people right away to do this things if you can't, or I promise you, unless you are extremely lucky (which can happen every once in a while), you'll be out of business very quickly.

Why do I seem so negative? I've seen more friends and co-workers in nursing try this. They thought, "I'm a good nurse and I'm smart so that must make me qualified to run an agency." They figure that since there are all these other companies out there doing it that they must be making a ton of money. And since they are a nurse, they should clearly know more about a nursing agency than those non-nursing people working in the agency offices. Newsflash, most aren't making much at all, and many are losing money. A nursing degree is virtually worthless by itself in making you qualified to run a business. They taught us how to do wound care, IV's, etc NOT interpret a balance sheet, a profit and loss statement, an aging report and so forth. Those friends, most of them, were living a pretty good life from a financial standpoint. Now most of them have nothing and it's really sad.

I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, just trying to bring a LITTLE bit of reality to all the people on here screeming that doing such a thing is so darn easy. It's not! Not even for a truly QUALIFIED person. And if you fail, you don't lose your job, you lose EVERYTHING you call your own.

I really would like to start an agency. Could someone help ?

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