Do You Need To Learn Business Skills to Start a Geriatric Care Management Business?

May 3, 2021

What Business Skills Do You Have To Start A Geriatric Care Management Agency?

Starting a Geriatric Care Management Agency does not take simply clinical skills but also business skills. Only 3% of geriatric care managers now have business skills because most are in the health field, nurses, and social workers. So it takes business skills you would get in an MBA to start of GCM business. What are those skills and how do you get them without an MBA?

GCM ALCA billing skills to develop a billing system that allows you to bill 85% of your time, control your cash flow, invoice promptly to make a profit
GCM financial forecasting skills to develop a 3-year financial forecast Excel spreadsheet to track your basic profit and expenses and to track the number of clients and billable hours needed to break even make a profit, pay back loans, hire new staff, and take a salary yourself
GCM organizational design skills to create your business flow chart and job descriptions, and outline how power flows down your staff to deliver gold standard care to clients
GCM marketing survey skills to pinpoint your area’s upper 10% clients and 3rd-party referrals to market, to make your business profitable
GCM competitive analysis skills to set the fee per hour your market will bear for your services and to gather information from each, to position your services vs your competition’s so clients will choose you
GCM timeline skills to identify and list (in a manageable, doable order), majortasks to complete before you open your business
GCM business planning skills to write a 13-part business plan to create a blueprint of measurable goals for your business’s financial success
GCM marketing skills to create a marketing plan to develop lead sources, conduct lead generation, launch social media and conduct content marketing to gain new customers
GCM sales skills
position your agency to sell your menu of services benefits to 3rd parties and clients through cold calling, 1-1 sales meetings, and inquiries, by knowing how to close the sale and sign the contrac

If you do not have all or some of these skills, check out my Online GCM Business Class which includes 10 modules teaching you all these business skills to start your GCM Business including two modules critical financial management so you do not go under and lose your dream start-up

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The 2 Deadliest US Sites of COVID-19 Nursing Homes & Prisons

May 2, 2020

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT 6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

70% of inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19. In Kansas, the Lansing Correctional Facility had a riot of inmates over COVID-19 lack of care or protection It took the rebellion to get the coronavirus testing PPE and care. The Bureau of Prisons in Kansas confirmed finally that 79 staff have coronavirus and 88 prisons and prisoners dead.

Older residents in nursing homes cannot rebel like prisoners. Many can’t even walk. The Atlantic Magazine just published an article, We are Killing Elders Now. The writer states “In at least six states, these fatalities account for half of all COVID-19 deaths, and according to the World Health Organization, half of all coronavirus fatalities in Europe have been traced to nursing homes too. Some of this mortality is linked to long-term-care facilities that are shoddily run or that violate health standards. But most of them are doing the best they can with what they have. And they don’t have much”.

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

Kaiser reports -Staff Screening. It is more common for states to recommend rather than require daily screening of staff for illness in NFs (24 states recommend, 16 states + DC require)

Use of PPE. More states recommend (23 states) than require (7 states + DC) staff to use PPE

Two States that require testing for coronavirus of ALL residents of nursing homes are Maryland where 556 have died as of the Washington Post article. and Tennessee

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

We have no federal guidelines for safety testing according to an article by the Kaiser Foundation

It is now estimated that 16,000 deaths have occurred in nursing homes and that is without the federal government revealing any numbers and not making available any testing. But the numbers are probably huge- if we could just do testing.

CMS announced it would have a meeting of a “panel” of experts “ sometime at the end of May”. After probably 20,000 older people died and the feds did nothing this shows their sense of urgency about this pandemic’s national “elder cleansing”.

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

So, what is the connection between the viral spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and prisons- 6 feet ? Prisoners and residents, in nursing homes, and prisons cannot social distance. Jails and prisons have human beings crammed together with no choice. Nursing homes have 2 beds or if you are on Medicaid three to a room. Neither group has a choice to social distance. They are ” concentrated” as in concentration camps or death camps.

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

So, as someone who has spent her career in aging, I am calling out to everyone, especially professional in aging – do something. Since the feds appear to be doing little- call your congressman, write a letter to the editor.

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

Rachel Maddow suggests calling your local nursing homes and see what they need. Be kind like the LA Jewish Home was to a smaller nursing home LA Brier Oaks. They wanted to test their residents and had no tests and the larger LA Jewish Home had tests and shared them with the smaller as a good neighbor. What they found was ravaging but it also showed caring and generosity. Care and be generous and show the helpless elders in nursing homes in your town you are opposed to -nursing home being prisons or concentration camps.

Stop -Before Starting Geriatric Care Management Business – Do a Competition Survey

September 24, 2019

If you are thinking of starting private geriatric care management, a competition survey is critical to decide if you can make a profit in this business.

You are surveying who your competition is in the geographic area you want to serve. You are discovering if you can achieve market share in the area you choose to serve.

You want to create a survey in excel that tracks the individual care manager’s in your services area, and find out what their hourly fee is, do they include homecare, what geriatric care management services does each GCM offer, do they answer in two rings, how is their customer service, are they on call 24 hrs a day, are their care managers certified.

Use a staff member or outside person to be a secret shopper and make the calls, as you are doing market research. You must find someone who feels comfortable impersonating someone else. You need to give that person a customer story- they are a daughter looking for services in your area and calling around and a description of the fake mother and her problems

This will also tell you if the local market is too saturated for your new business to compete with the other care management agencies. It will test whether you can make a profit- can you make money, pay your bills, actually go to the next step while doing good?

Fewer businesses are failing in 2019 for many reasons. One is the tendency of would-be entrepreneurs to evaluate business opportunities more carefully before taking the plunge, by doing a competition survey. Potential company founders are more selective than they used to be. This means fewer marginal companies – businesses whose products are not needed or whose markets are already being served by other businesses – are being formed. As a result, the average American company is stronger and more likely to survive than it once was. This means doing a competition survey to find out if your product care management is really needed in your market and are too many geriatric care management competitors, in your area for you to successfully compete as a new business.

Learn how to do your market sizing and competition survey and discover whether you have enough customers in your area to start your care management business. Don’t Guess and fail.

Sign Up for My Newest Free Webinar

5 Critical Steps to Start or Restart a GCM/ALCA Business

THIS WEBINAR BEGINS: Tuesday, October 22 at 2 PM PST Ends 3:15 PM PST

Learn how to transform your GCM entrepreneurial dream into a money-making business with 5 profit driven steps!

How to Do A Competition Survey
How to Learn GCM Financial Literacy
How to Give GCM Concierge Service
How to Bill 85% of your time
What GCM Products Services to Sell
SIDESTEP THE 8 OUT OF 10 ENTREPRENEURS WHO START BUSINESSES AND FAIL WITHIN THE FIRST 18 MONTHS
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Afraid of Your Competition ??-You Can Learn How to Position Your Business From Them

January 14, 2019

Your competitors can show you how to position your business so you stand out from the competition. Positioning is how you make clients in your area choose you over others in the area you serve. Your ALCA or Care management competition survey, ( which should so yearly by getting a mystery shopper). The Trump administration says there are lots of people out there be a mystery shopper since he shut the government down. These mystery shopper calls ( the coast guard or your staff) let you identify and survey other direct GCM competitors like the area agency on aging which may have a GCM arm or for-profits like accountants or elder law attorneys who include geriatric care management in their service mix.

Identify substitute providers like hospitals, often through their home health services. These can also be part of your competition to take market share from you. Private duty home care agencies offer geriatric care management to their web site. But you have to discover whether they have a certified aging life geriatric care manager as part of their staff. Tracking this down takes having a secret shopper calling all of these agencies and talking to the actual geriatric care manager and asking for their credentials, prices, services, and many more variables.

Professional Patient advocates in your area should also be tracked as possible competitors.

Non-profits often spin off for profit geriatric care management arms to help with the more needy clients they serve. Many religious denominations have geriatric care as a choice so you can learn how they are leveraging their brand. Area Agencies on Aging offer private geriatric care management and can do a good job of leveraging their respect and brand in the community.

Trust departments or wealth management services can have care management to assist with their elderly clients or the adult children in wealth management, who care for their parents.

All these competition surveys will show you marketing/positioning alternatives in your this competitive landscape. They will show how to better brand and shape your branding message- so you are the top choice of customers.

Find out how you can position your own GCM/ALCA agency, over your competition and be chosen by clients seeking care for loved ones.

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Market Like Your Business Depended on it!
When: January 23, 2019
2PM-3PM PST
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How to position your agency so it stands out from your competitors
How to develop or rewrite a strategic marketing plan in 2019 that brings more customers
How to use branding to build positive gut feelings about your agency
How to develop lead generation and tactics through third parties
How to set up leads generation with both a speakers bureau to do co-presentations & join the rubber chicken circuit to reach adult children and targeted audiences:
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If you Are A Start-Up Geriatric Care Management Agency – Do You Have Business Skills?

October 14, 2018

You need clinical skills to start and run an aging life or geriatric care management agency but you must have business skills as well.

Geriatric care managers need to understand revenue- how they make money to be financially to make a profit. Revenue does come from billing – but poor billing is very unprofitable billing. Money-losing billing is anything less than 85% of your client’s time. When you bill less than 85% you actually start losing money. Revenue is the high tide of money and is calculated by the number of client’s you serve, new client’s per month, number of clients canceling service. % of time billed (the goal is 85%) and what you charge for travel time.

You need to know how to do a competition survey to measure whether you have too much competition and what your competitors off so you can offer more and be chosen. You should also identify and survey other direct GCM competitors like the non-profit area agency on aging which may have a GCM arm or for-profit like accountants or elderlaw attorneys who include geriatric care management in their service mix .

You need to know branding. Aging life or geriatric care manager must use different branding and a marketing approach that messages hyper-attention to seamless care to attract these top 10% concierge clients who can afford your services long term.

Marketing your existing or new Aging Life or GCM business is vital to growth, but where you spend your marketing dollars? What marketing tactics make the most sense for you? Where will you reach your concierge client base best?

This is where your marketing strategy comes into play. Before the business can start generating large revenue, a concierge marketing strategy and sales techniques must be in place.

Your marketing message must be communicated to the concierge customer. You need to how to write a business plan, use social media to attract customers, how to do 1-1 marketing to third parties-

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How do you attract Concierge upper 10 % of clients you need to keep your business afloat and really profitable?
- Want to know more about what you need to start or restart a Care Management Agency?
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  - Reach our target concierge audience
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  - Obtain adult children’s buy-in
  - Use marketing that will make them choose you
  - Get the contract signed with ease
  - Create a brand that tells concierge clients they will get Four Seasons Service
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If you Are A Start-Up Geriatric Care Management Agency – Do You Have Business Skills?

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