How to Start a Home Care Business: The Proposal (part 8)

Hey Everybody!

It's me again, Charles Lamson, Editor and Chief Writer of The Rant. So it's been awhile since my last installment of How to Start a Home Care Business. I got a little side-trekked. I got about as far as I could go on the home care business plan for seniors and disabled adults, who wish to remain in a community setting. I really needed help and instruction and didn't know how to proceed. I didn't know what to put in my proposal. I saw that there was a training and orientation class I could go to in September in Jefferson City about 90 minutes from here, but being poor and disabled, I really didn't know how I could make it down there. So I decided to back off that plan for a bit and let the universe work its magic and somehow help me out with this situation.

It was at this time that I met my new business partner, Tonya. We thought maybe it would be a good idea to lay off the home care business for a bit and focus more on starting a non-emergency medical transportation service for seniors and adults with disabilities. We thought it might actually be easier and take less time to get the transportation business up and running, because with the home care business we have to create this rather lengthy proposal which is basically the business plan showing how we will structure, run, and grow our new business. And then, even before we submit our finished proposal, due to the large influx of providers submitting proposals, and many instances of payroll taxes and unemployment contributions not being paid for Medicaid consumers; MMAC (Missouri Medicaid Audit & Compliance) is requiring that all potential CDS (consumer directed services) providers (which is what Tonya and I are)  attend CDS orientation training prior to submitting a proposal. Documentation of attendance will be required for all proposals received by MMAC after March 1, 2019. And then after we submit the proposal, again due to the large influx of CDS providers submitting proposals, it will take about six months to get our proposal approved by the state, barring no corrections or clarifications need to be made on our part.

So bearing all this in mind, Tonya and I thought it might be faster and easier to start a business as Medicaid providers of non-emergency medical transportation services to seniors and adults with disabilities to help them get to doctors' appointments and medical procedures.

Well, after a lot of in-depth research and investigating, we came to the conclusion that we were mistaken. There is no softer, easier way to get started in either business and to get any kind of loan for start up money, we were going to have to buckle down and write out a good clear, concise business plan, and we figured it would probably be easier for us to go back and focus on getting the home care business up and running first, especially considering that we would need to worry about getting enough start up money for a small fleet of handicapped accessible transport vehicles, and getting them all insured, and all that.

 In starting any kind of legitimate business, you have to jump through a lot of hoops and go through a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, before you are up and running, but when you are trying to start a business that takes money from state Medicaid, it is even more bureaucracy to deal with.

You can go to all the Missouri Department of Social Services Medicaid Provider web sites and get some education from there, but it is total information overload. It is like trying to take a drink of water from a fire-hose. So I contacted this lady from the state and she put things in a simple step-by-step way. First thing I have to do to enroll as a Medicaid provider with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services was to write my proposal, which is basically a business plan for the home care business I want to create.

So, I got an okay start on the business plan by going to the Small Business Administration's website, sba.gov, and following a template they have for a business plan. I just really got to a point where I had no idea how to proceed. I needed help so I went back to some earlier parts of this proposal that were posted on this blog to figure out what I'm supposed to put into this proposal. I remembered the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services had links for Medicaid provider instructional training and orientation classes.

So I went to my blog to check out some of the earlier parts of this series of articles on how to start a home care business. I found this link IHS (In Home Services) and CDS (Consumer Directed Services) Proposal Information, and at this site I found this link, Provider Certification Training. Clicking on that brought me to a site entitled IHS Designated Manager Training & CDS Orientation.

So, at this point, we had to decide whether we wanted IHS Designated Manager Training or CDS Orientation. For brevity's sake, I won't go into all the reasons why, but we figured things might be a bit simpler if we made our business a consumer directed services company.

So at this site here is what I learned about CDS Orientation Training.

CDS Orientation Training

Due to the large influx of CDS providers submitting proposals and many instances of payroll taxes and unemployment contributions not being paid for Medicaid consumers; MMAC is requiring that all potential CDS providers attend CDS Orientation training prior to submitting a proposal. Documentation of attendance will be required for all proposals received by MMAC after March 1, 2019.

Current CDS providers are also encouraged to attend the CDS presentations, pending availability of seats. Priority will be given to providers that have not yet submitted a proposal.

TrainingThe training sessions will be available every other month throughout 2019.

Pre-registration is required but there is no cost to attend.  The training will consist of a three hour presentation of the CDS program, proposal submission, applicable rules and regulations, responsibility of the vendor agency (payroll, taxes, employment contributions and security background screenings), and general guidance regarding the CDS program.  The training will start at 9:00 and end at noon.  A MMAC representative will be available after the training to answer questions.

RegistrationPre-registration is required because space is limited. The online registration form must be filled out completely.  Once the training date has reached capacity, the date will no longer be available for selection.  The next session will not be made available until after the current training has taken place.

Registration link: CDS Orientation Training

So I clicked on that registration link and registered for the September 24, 2019 training session. That is a little over two months away. Hopefully I can get some good useful information there and make some contacts with people who are more knowledgeable in this area, than Tonya and I. In the meantime, I'm going to keep doing research at the Missouri Department of Social Services website for more information for Medicaid providers of consumer directed home care services for seniors and disabled adults who wish to stay in a community setting, and doing what work I can on my own in creating this business plan, until I can hopefully get some assistance at this upcoming orientation.

*SOURCE: https://mmac.mo.gov/providers/hcbs-provider-certification-training/*

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