Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Critical Success Factor for Start Up Care Management Aging- Serve Top 10%

August 2, 2021

Your customers need to be in the top 10% economically and here’s why. That is how you will make money, stay solvent and thrive. To start a Geriatric Care Management business PLUS to write a major section of your GCM business plan, you must describe the customers you intend to serve -your market assessment or opportunity. That tells you and investors whether you will have enough customers to make money. The Concierge Client who is in the top 10% financially is your client.  Start your business plan and your intention to make money, with a definition of your ideal client. Example: Woman, 85 years old with chronic care needs who has an income or liquid assets of $500,000 or more.

Upper 10% Customer Needs to be Your Mission and Intention- Why?

You want to list the customers who will reward you the most financially. This has to be in your mission and deeply in your mind. The “Why” is Medicare does not cover geriatric care management which is about expensive as a plumber or more critically – home care-at $4000-6000 a month -as expensive as the average closing cost on a home PER MONTH. Only the top 10% can afford that. So, make this your mental intention because you are running a business whose very blood is cash flow. Without the profit motive and profit, your new business stands a major chance of failure

Ideal Clients and Third-Parties You Need for Success

 How many of these ideal clients are in the area you wish to serve? You need to do an analysis of the age and income levels. Generally, geriatric care management customers are over age 85 or are disabled younger people with incomes in the range of the top 10% in your community. One gateway to your customers is the local overstressed adult children of clients, long-distance caregivers with family members who need help and live in your community, Another door is third parties, such as trust officers, attorneys, conservators, or guardians, who refer you to their elderly clients or adult children, as a trusted GCM’s, 

If You Want To Start an Aging Life or Geriatric Care Management Business you need to know you can make money before you start.

You need to do market research to define the size of the market in the area where your business will be located (e.g., how many people over age 85 live in Modesto, California, how many third-party target markets such as trust departments are in the town?). This type of demographic information may be available from U.S. Census Bureau reports local Area Agencies on Aging, local chambers of commerce, local hospitals, and even members of the local media who have done their own surveys. You can use the Internet to retrieve U.S. Census data in your area, and in addition, you can Google your State Department of Aging, find your local Department of Aging, and then find all senior services that may have data on older people in your area.

 

You Need To Understand Billing and Cash Flow for Success

You also need to know about billing. You might be making good money but if your cash flow is not coming in to pay your bills and staff, you stand a new chance of failure. Care managers who are most often social workers and nurses, often have an ethical dilemma with billing and are filled with guilt. That guilt keeps them from billing every hour and leaving time billed off their timesheet to help a client. This leaves them hurting their business and their bottom line over the short term – not being able to pay their bills and themselves each month. If this continues long term- the GCM is faced finally, like a slowly dying tree in a drought , death by bankruptcy.

Check out my  Online GCM Business Class which includes 10 modules on starting your GCM Business including two modules on financial management so you do not go under and lose your dream start-up

  • LEARN MORE ABOUT LEARNING GCM BUSINESS SKILLS WITHOUT GETTING AN MBA 

  • Check out our affordable price or choose a monthly payment plan

 

Find Out More 

 

Skills you will learn in My GCM Business Class

  • 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), major tasks 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 leadgeneration, launch social media and conduct content marketing to gain new customers
  • GCM sales skills to position your agency to sell your menu of services
    through 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 contract
    • LEARN MORE ABOUT LEARNING GCM BUSINESS SKILLS WITHOUT GETTING AN MBA 

    • Check out our affordable price or choose a monthly payment plan

     

    Find out More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, aging life business, aging life care manager, ALCA business, ALCA Business Skills, ALCA start-up business, Blog, care manager, cash flow, Concierge aging clients, concierge clients, Families, GCM Business Flow Chart, GCM Business Skills, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, high end clients, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, START UP, start up geriatric care management business, Start-up Marketing, value proposition Tagged With: aging business, aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging life geriatric care billing data base, barrier to billing, Billing 85%, billing for geriatric care management, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, black american social workers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black RN's, Black start-up geriatric care management, business start up, care manager, case manager, critical success factor For GCM or Aging Life business, Ethical Dilemma with Billing, GCM billing, GCM customers, GCM making a profit, GCM start-up, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, nurse care manager eldercare manager start-up, Profitable aging life business, profitable ALCA business, reaching top 10% elder, start-up aging business, start-up care management business, start-up care manager, start-up eldercare, target market for GCM customers, webinar billing care management hours

Do You Know How to Find Your Care Management Competition?

April 6, 2017

If you do competition survey to research whether you should start a  geriatric care management  business, you should survey all direct and indirect  GCM competitors. This can be public agencies like your local the area agency on aging which may have a GCM arm, for profits like accountants or elderlaw attorneys who include geriatric care management in their service mix. Non -profits often add geriatric care management to their mix of service to support low cost services they offer.

Identify substitute providers like your local hospital add this to avoid Medicare discharge penalties. These can also be part of your competition to take market share from you. But you have to discover whether they have a aging life geriatric care manager ,as part of their staff. Tracking this down takes calling all of these agencies and talking to the actual geriatric care manager and asking for their credentials. Professional Patient Advocates  in your area should also be tracked as possible competitors. Home heath agencies often employ aging life or geriatric care managers so adding them to your competition survey is key . Jewish Family Services and other religious based non profits  often add private geriatric care management to their menu of services,  so call them as well.

All these competition surveys will recommend marketing/positioning alternatives in your this competitive landscape. What you need to discover is what products/ services they offer and you must  design products /services that make you different will make the aging family customer choose you instead of your competition.

Find about my new webinar 

GPS to a Profitable GCM Business Start Up    

scheduled for May 9th 11:00 AM PST- 90 minutes

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

Filed Under: Aging, Blog, GCM Start -Up, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, home care, Private Duty Home Care Tagged With: aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, competition survey, geriatric care manager, non-profit care manager, nurse care manager, start-up care manager

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