If you’re wondering how to grow your fledgling home care agency into a flourishing business, complete with a regular stream of new clients and a steady cash flow, keep reading. We’ll explore some of the keys to achieving this.

Have a Solid Business and Funding Plan 

A business plan isn’t just a tool for starting your home care agency. It will also guide you through growth and help you make the right business decisions. Your plan should include your short, medium, and long-term goals, as well as your sources of funding.

When billing Medicare and third-party insurance programs, you might find that payouts are slow and easily delayed by minor errors in your paperwork. You’ll need a solid funding plan to avoid cash flow issues that could otherwise bottleneck your growth. 

Choose Your Partnerships Carefully

Building connections takes time and energy, but the right partnerships can help launch your home care agency to success. In particular, there are three types of partnerships you should look for:

1. Complementary Services

   Building relationships with complementary services will mean you can refer each other to potential clients. For example, your business might not be at the stage where you have an in-house speech therapist. Fostering a relationship with an independent speech therapist, however, will help you fill that gap in the short term and better meet clients’ needs.

2. Mentor(s)

   Running a business means making challenging business decisions in a huge range of sectors: marketing, accounting, HR, IT, and more. It can also be a stressful and, at times, lonely experience. A mentor or team of mentors will help you by offering advice based on years of experience, as well as a friendly ear.

3. Useful Business Contacts

   From caregiver agency owners to freelance marketers and web developers, it’s worth nurturing strong relationships with talented business contacts you can reach out to as needed. When your website starts crashing, you don’t have time to waste shopping around for an expert with space in their schedule. Instead, you want to have a contact you can trust saved on your phone.

Remember: 3 Ways to Improve Your Income Stream

Signing up more business is the only way to ensure that your home care agency will grow. However, some agencies become so focused on one source of new work that they overlook easy growth. Remember, there are three ways to find more business:

1. Sign Up New Clients 

   Attracting new clients is essential for the long-term sustainability of your business, although it’s also the most work-intensive method of sourcing additional work. It means advertising your agency, whether that’s through improving your website, running social media campaigns, or encouraging word of mouth and referrals.

2. Increase Per-Client Spending 

   You’ve already developed a relationship of trust with your clients, which means it’s easier to sign them up for additional services. Of course, you want to strike a balance here. The idea is to simultaneously improve your finances while ensuring clients are only paying for services that actually benefit them. By regularly reviewing your care plans and potentially diversifying your offerings, you can ensure you’re providing your clients with all the care they’re looking for.

3. Retain Existing Clients for Longer

   Increasing your client retention levels is the most profitable way of improving your income stream. You don’t have to spend time and money advertising or building relationships with new families. Instead, you just need to ensure clients are happy with the care they’re currently receiving. Regular check-ins and care plan reviews will help you confirm client satisfaction levels and take action where required. 

Invest in Scalable Systems and Tools

You can’t afford to double your admin time when you double the number of caregivers and clients. Working like this, you’ll quickly reach a growth ceiling and be unable to progress further.

Instead, make sure your systems and tools are scalable. Don’t put this off for later; it’s much easier to set up a good system from day one than implement it when you’re already overworked.

Your systems and tools should make administrative tasks quick, easy, and ideally automated. At a minimum, this extends to invoicing, scheduling, expenses, caregiver and client communications, and documentation expiry notifications and renewals.

Keep Your Caregivers Happy

Talented caregivers are hard to replace, so you want to keep resignations at a minimum. Retaining your best team members will help you maintain quality of care, protect institutional knowledge, reduce hiring and training costs, and ensure smooth business operations. 

Motivated staff also work better, so it’s worth investing in building strong relationships with your team members. Try to create schedules that work around their commitments, and make sure caregivers have all the tools they need to do their jobs well.

Growing Your Home Care Agency: From Humble Beginnings to a Thriving Future

The right systems, strategies, and connections will allow you to grow your home care agency, and in doing so, expand your services and boost your profitability. So, set your business up for success by looking after caregiver satisfaction levels, drafting a business funding plan that ensures cash flow, and prioritizing client retainment. What’s more, make sure the tools you use will allow you to easily scale up.

At ShiftCare, we create home care software that handles all your administrative tasks so you can focus on caregiving. It has advanced scheduling options, including caregiver availability, that will allow you to create the detailed schedule you need in minutes. Funds management, invoicing, and document expiry and renewals are all automated, while caregivers can quickly access all the shift and client details they need to provide quality service. Try it for free today.