Adult family care homes or residential care homes are family residences that offer care for older adults. They’re an alternative to assisted living or nursing homes and provide family-style living. Adult family care homes aren’t institutional.
Whether you open or work in an adult family care home, you must do your due diligence. This includes submitting your fingerprints for a thorough national and state criminal background check. FEFPS is an FDLE-approved center that provides seamless and convenient fingerprinting services to AHCA providers.
What Is an Adult Family Care Home?
If your loved one requires better care than they can provide at home, it’s time to consider residential care. An adult family care home is a term used to describe a community where senior citizens can live and receive care in a home-like setting. Typically, 5 to 10 older adults live in a family care home.
These care homes provide round-the-clock care to older people and ensure their medical needs are met. Seniors who live in care homes are called residents, not patients. An adult family care home is usually situated in a family residential home.
How to open an Adult Family Care Home?
An adult family care home is a licensed AHCA facility that provides care to the elderly in a family-like setting. However, this industry is quite competitive, especially when you are trying to run a family care home. To keep your business running, you must conduct market research, estimate the cost for the facility, and analyze the state’s regulations.
Conducting Market Research and Analyzing Competition:
The first step towards opening up an adult care home is to analyze the area and learn more about other care homes in your community. A thorough market research would help you estimate the cost of the center and be ready for any financial hurdles you may face.
Assessing the competition and analyzing the need-
Before investing in your care home, you need to research the area. You need to learn about the need for care homes in your community. Opening an adult care home in a community dominated by youngsters would be a bad business decision.
When you analyze the need, you also need to look into other adult care homes in your area. By figuring out their capacity and how many vacant beds they have, you will be able to analyze the need.
If your community needs an adult care home, the next step would be to assess the competition. Consider opening a care home in an area with comparatively less competition.
Distinguish your facility with a specialty-
You can also add a recreational room in your care home, distinguishing your facility from competitors. When senior citizens enroll in a family care home, they are looking for people to take care of them. Holding recreational activities like a field trip or movie day would make your care home more appealing.
Learning more about the regulations in your state-
Each state in the United States has its regulations and laws regarding adult care homes. Opening an adult care home requires a lot of zoning, building codes, and staffing. You need to follow all the rules and regulations set up by the state government to avoid the closure of your facility.
You can hire a local attorney if you need help understanding the legal complexities and regulations. They will help you understand the complicated rules and terminologies you need help understanding.
Setting a business plan and securing a place for your care home:
Once you have assessed your area’s competition and need, you are ready to start working towards your facility. To ensure that your care home thrives, you need a thorough business plan and funds.
Estimating the initial business costs-
Opening an adult family care home requires a reasonable initial investment. You would get a good idea of the initial business costs through your market research. Creating a simple spreadsheet of your business’s land and renovation equipment can make the cost analysis easier. Once you have a rough figure, you can seek funding from investors or banks.
Making a thorough business plan-
If you need to secure funding from an investor or get a bank loan, you must submit a thorough business plan. You must plan where and how to operate your adult family care home. The business plan should be 10 to 30 pages long. It should be a professional document and should include the following:
- Summary: This would summarize your business and why it would succeed.
- Company Description: This would explain how your facility is structured and the way it would function.
- Market Analysis: This section is used to describe your competition and target market
- Organization and Management: Identify your key leadership goals and faculty in this section
- Offered Services: This section would lay out all the services provided to your residents in the care home
- Marketing Strategy: The section should explain how you will attract more residents to your facility
- Funding Request: To get your care home up and running, you need to mention how you’ll fund the care home
- Financial Projections: In this section, you will mention the financial projections and success for the next five years
Registering as a Business Entity-
An adult family care home is a legally licensed business; you must register it with the state. You can register your adult family care home as a Limited Liability Corporation. As an LLC, it would be easier for you to secure funding and protect your personal assets and finances.
You can form an LLC among a few partners. Registering your business is pretty straightforward. You just have to fill up a form with a unique name for your business and file it with the state. However, you can hire an attorney to complete the process faster.
Securing a location for your care home-
To start your adult care home, you must first secure a location. The location should be big enough to accommodate your residents. The critical area would depend upon your local regulations. You must have enough bedrooms, washrooms, and recreational activities.
An ideal location for your adult care home would be a quiet environment away from noisy surroundings. The site should also be close to medical facilities like hospitals or emergency care units. You can choose the perfect location for your care home based on your market research findings on the needs of the elderly.
Applying for a license and hiring skilled staff:
Once you have finalized your adult care home location, you must get your facility licensed. The licensing procedure and regulations would differ between states. You also need to hire skilled and professional staff to care for the residents.
Applying for licenses-
To get a license for an adult family care home, you should be able to provide all residents with enough space to live and the necessary assistance with medications and other daily activities. You should also have the required equipment to monitor their health. You’ll also need to pass an inspection before you receive your license.
You must submit your fingerprints to the FDLE to obtain a comprehensive state and national criminal record. The AHCA requires this Level 2 background check before it can issue your license. FEFPS is a veteran-founded FDLE- approved center that provides high-quality livescan fingerprinting. We submit your fingerprints to FDLE on the same day. The report is generated and forwarded to AHCA while your license application is reviewed.
Hiring Service Providers at an Adult Family Care Home-
Once you get your adult family care home license, you must also employ professional service care providers. A significant difference between an assisted living facility and a care home is that there is more staff than residents to ensure they’re correctly cared for.
When hiring a service provider, you must ensure they’re at least 21 years old and have completed the required AFCH provider training. You can also offer them training at your facility if you hire a newbie. These training and educational programs are designed to teach providers how to care for residents properly.
In addition to the training, you must file a criminal background report with the AHCA for all your employees. All employees under contract with these care homes providing services to seniors must be subject to a Level 2 background check.
Your employees must submit their fingerprints at an FDLE- approved center. You can contact FEFPS, a veteran-founded business, to provide these services to your employees. We offer high-quality livescan fingerprinting at an affordable price. Prints are submitted to FDLE the same day, and reports are generated within 3 days. You must ensure that all the employees you hire have a clean criminal record.
