By Lara Patterson, HomeWell Opening Services Manager
It is an exciting time! You are now a business owner and you’re on the way to opening your own home care agency. What happens now?
Welcome to the Opening Services team at HomeWell. This is your first stop after you have signed your Franchise Agreement. We are here to help guide you through the “what now?” moments and our primary objective and purpose is to help you open your agency.
Licensing & The Non-Medical Home Care Industry
The U.S. healthcare industry is carefully regulated. Each state has its own regulations to protect consumers. In many states, a home care agency needs a license to operate.
Our first focus then becomes getting an application for your license submitted. We have a vetted partnership with a legal service that helps you with the logistical issues of applying for a license. In fact, it is our main focus for about the first 30 days. The time for licensing varies greatly among all the states, anywhere from 90 – 180 days. Ultimately, our goal is less days to the dollar – in other words, getting you open as soon as possible to start earning revenue.
Strategic Business Planning
Once the application has been submitted, the timeline begins. Opening Services works with you on everything from assistance with building a business plan, performing a competitive analysis to helping determine pay and billing rates.
HomeWell partners with one of the industry’s leading home care agency software companies. This home care franchise management software is where our owners input all their data, including client and caregiver information. Accurately getting this software set up is an integral part of opening a home care agency. Our Opening Services team helps owners start this process by getting everything set up properly and facilitating comprehensive software training.
Logistics
Each agency has a physical office. We discuss the site selection process for the office, including location choices that are the best and the needs for that space. We also review the insurance requirements to operate and then move on to the necessary items for setting up your office.
The Opening Services team will also introduce you to our online marketing portal. The HomeWell marketing team has created marketing collateral for our agencies to personalize and easily order. There are some marketing materials that agencies will want to get sooner rather than later. For instance, having business cards and branded stationary is important to have as soon as you get your license.
Additionally, we have relationships with vendors across the board to help connect you to secondary referral sources, payroll processing, recruiting, and much more.
Training
Though HomeWell will provide you with plenty of necessary resources to launch your franchise, it’s up to you and your staff to make or break it. That’s why we want to send you to work with all the knowledge we can, giving you extensive training before your doors open and offering supplementary education opportunities well into the future. Our training options include:
- The Learning Management System (LMS): Our LMS is home to more than 100 modules for you and your team to explore, covering everything from home care tips to accounting skills. Though you’ll learn the basics of these concepts in training, these modules will help you continue growing and expanding your knowledge, letting you serve your community even more effectively.
- Sales training classes: Connect with other franchisees when you sign up for our sales training courses. These lessons give you the opportunity to improve your B2B skills and build a network with people who are experiencing the same challenges and accomplishments you are.
- The Franchise Services Department: This department is dedicated exclusively to helping Franchise Owners stay up to date in the industry and troubleshoot solutions to any day-to-day challenges. We aim to be available any time one of our valued franchisees needs assistance. With one call, we’ll be ready to answer your questions and give you a shoulder to lean on as you tackle this exciting challenge.
Learn More With Our Franchise Kit
Now that you’ve read a little about our openings process, connect with us through email or contact form to see if HomeWell is the right fit for you. Or, start by downloading our Franchise Kit. This kit will give you all the basics of what goes into running a HomeWell franchise and help you learn what to expect as you move through the process. What we’ve mentioned above is only a fraction of the support we provide our franchisees daily. Discover everything else we do to help you grow today.