Episode 7: The Red Tape Reality Check (Licensing & Insurance)

The #1 reason people give up on their senior care business dream? The paperwork.

Licensing, insurance, and state regulations can feel like a massive wall blocking your path to success. But in Episode 3: The Red Tape Reality Check, we are breaking that wall down brick by brick.

Join me in the studio as we cover: ✅ Where to find your state's specific licensing rules. ✅ The Administrator training you actually need. ✅ The 3 non-negotiable insurance policies that protect your personal assets. ✅ A realistic timeline from LLC formation to opening day.

Grab your notepad and let's make your business legal, compliant, and ready to scale!

https://daytodayseniorcare.com/about-us

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hey everyone, Charlie Day from Day to Day Senior Care. How are you? All right, welcome to our uh episode three, the red tape reality check licensing and insurance. Okay, so before I start, I just want to introduce myself. I'm the owner founder of Day-to-Day Senior Care, and uh we're just doing some great things right now. We're um out there and we're helping uh families and and um we have clients that we're serving uh five days a week, 24-hour care, live-ins, and a new one that we just recently started in assisted living facility. Um, so we're we're we're out there and we're doing the right things. But today I wanted to share more of what you, if you're looking to start your own business. Let me just check here my mic, make sure I got this. Hold on one second. It seems like it's too low. Does that sound better? Here we go. Perfect, perfect. Okay, so we thank you also. Thank you everyone for uh being with me um for these past couple of episodes. Um, last week we did our episode. This one today is um goes in deeper um into how to uh start your business, whether in assisted living, home care, daycare. A lot of them are similar. And and I'm from New York. So what I'll be discussing today is um you know ways to get this taken taken care of here in New York State, because every state's different. Okay. Uh let's see. So I do have a script. I know sometimes I go unscripted, and I will actually do that, but just to have something to stay focused, because I tend to go here, there, left, everything. So, all right, all right. So thank you again, and here we go. So um I am going to put the presentation up too for you. All right, and I just want to make sure everyone can see it. And I'm going to share the screen. And there we go. Okay. So day-to-day CNC Consultant Services presents episode three, the red taped reality check, licensing and insurance simplified. So first we have to look at let me get this here. Okay. So first we need to look at state-by-state rules. Okay. So there is no national standard. That's why I had said that every state has their own specific uh regulations, policies, applications. Um, you must locate your specific state. It's licensing body today. Do not sign a lease or hire anyone until you know exactly what your state requires. So it's a lot of research, folks. Um, with my business and and my, you know, I I look at it first. Right now, I'm doing non-companion care here in New York State. I mean, non non-medical companion care here in New York State. So I know what the rules are. I did my LLC, I got everything licensed, and um I've looked at assisted livings. I've looked at them over the last uh 10 years because I was already considering possibly going to uh start an assisted living, a smaller version, because I've noticed in other states you have 20 residents in uh in a residential home, somebody buys the real estate, you know, the owners they get the operator license and then they admit um residents that uh need assisted living. But instead of going to the big assisted livings, the the ones everyone knows, you know, the atrias and the Bristols, and because you know, although they have great services and they've they've got luxurious style living and they've got the best food out there, um some people can't afford that month-to-month. So there is a need. I know it, it's in a need here in New York State. It's something I've thought about for a while, but my approach is let me just start working with seniors, and then we take it from there. Good business model to have is don't jump into everything at once. I learned that real fast. And I had I had a lot of family that uh also um you know grounded me. All right. Um, so just remember that now there's a three to nine month waiting period as well in New York. Okay, and honestly, it it can go even longer than that, okay? For anything, anything that you want approved uh through the Department of Health or the Department of Social Services. Um let's see, I should be able to click it in here. All right, I'm gonna make that work this way I could see. Um how do I do that again? Okay, so I'll just go back to my spot here. Okay, so if we look next, even if you own the business, you you usually need a specific administrator certificate to run it, especially for assisted living. Plan for 40 to 8 hours of initial training just for yourself. Okay, so now we look at the three the three um opportunities in in the field. So again, the assisted living, you've got a lengthy application that has to be submitted. Uh when you go into home care, another lengthy application needs to be submitted. And if you wanted to open up a day, adult daycare center, the same thing, okay. Um, here's the thing. I know many of you that are viewing have seen other uh how to start your own senior care businesses. I've seen the bigger ones, I've seen the ones where you get a free book and you join and pay$50 and you attend a uh, you know, an online uh workshop. Get all that, okay? But the bottom line, folks, is um as a business owner, you still need to have some experience to show the state that not only do you have the passion, but you've got the um the knowledge, you've got the education, okay. So not every application gets approved. So you have to have some experience. If you're a nurse, that's always good. If you've worked in healthcare for 10, 20 years, perfect. Okay. Um, all good. But the most important thing is um to if you're if you're looking to do that, maybe take some educational classes um prior. Um you may want to uh continue at your current position where you're at while you're uh you know looking to uh jump in. Um so if anyone has any questions too, that's right. I have a little chat here on the right. Let me just open it up so I can see if anyone from Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube is listening. Okay. But uh, yeah, you definitely you definitely need to be certified um in certain things. Let's move on here. See, admin administrative certifications, all right. I already spoke about some of this. There's administrative training programs you can go through. Okay. When I was when I was um uh awarded a certificate back in oh, it was late 90s, uh early 2000s. I gotta think back here. I don't have my resume next to me, but uh yeah, I worked in uh uh an assisted living called the Henry uh Perkins Adult Home. It was out in Riverhead, and um they were they were in jeopardy. Um this New York State was looking to close them because they had a ton of deficiencies. Um, they hired me to go in. I left a very good position, but I was working um for my master's in in education at Long Island University. And in order to graduate with my master's in uh public administration, healthcare administration specifically, I had to do uh uh field work, you know, an internship. So instead of doing it without getting paid, it was just the perfect moment. The owner, the owners needed me to go in there and correct everything and get that plan of correction into the state so that they could continue to operate. Okay, it's a method, not gonna get into all those details. I'm here to talk about starting a business, but uh I did um take care of all of that and got them in compliance. Um, so but I needed to be an administrator. How did I become a New York State um adult home administrator, assisted living administrator? Back then I had to do a um a little bit of uh uh some training. I had to have education. They I needed at least a bachelor's degree or an associate's degree with three years. I don't know the exact details. Um, but they approved me because I did have my bachelor's in uh psychology. Um so uh in I went and I had experience, obviously. I came from the uh Jefferson's Ferry retirement community that uh I was there for a few years as a director, and then I had managers and and other roles. Uh I was started out as an aide. So that like 10 years experience helped me get that position. Background checks and fingerprinting, also very important. Okay, guys, ladies, because if you're you know you're looking to start a uh business in in and be regulated by this department of state in whatever state you're in, you need to make sure that you know you're you're uh qualified. Now, there are certain people that you know there are certain situations, you know, you put in the truth that if you had a DWI, whatever, all those kind of things. Um, but you have to be, you know, you have to be upfront with all that. Okay, and this is all prior to uh even getting the application to the next level, and that's in all three home care, adult daycare centers, and assisted living folks. So, okay, the non-negotiable insurances, you've got the insurance type and what it actually covers. So, what I did here is I just wanted to show you basically how, you know, like general liability, you have to have that because of the slips, the falls, the property damage damage. Um, now as an LLC, if you take on uh an LLC and as opposed to a uh a partnership LC or a corporate or nonprofit or however you're gonna go, um, you still have to have these insurances. So the L the LLC has a limited liability insurance and will cover you under you know certain situations, you know. Um, so like for instance, um if um somebody tries to sue you because of negligence or something you did, and then uh you could, you know, they find out that you know it's not true or that you did every you did your due diligence and everything is covered in your paperwork and and your uh incident reports, then that's different. You get that liability, okay? And you get some you know, help with New York State, and then you got your professional liability, which everyone needs to have when you have a business too, because caregivers can make mistakes. There's malpractice, you know, somebody slips and falls. Um, you know, especially when you're in home care, you have nurses and and and home health aids. We're a companion program, non-medical right now, our business. But once I go to get my operator's license, um, I'll have to make sure that I, you know, add all these other um things to the policies. So, and then of course, workers' comp, employee on the job injuries. Now, when you're running, when you're starting a business, again, if you're under the DOH regulations, everything has to be um, you know, you have to have employees, payroll, um, withholdings, workers comp. If you're doing uh non-medical and you're doing companion, you have two choices. You can do payroll, you can do tax withholding with the state, you can also do contract labor. You make sure that you go to the New York State department of labor, you print out that copy there that um you give to a contractor that comes in to do work for you, whether it's uh services in an assisted living facility or in a private home, and someone's gonna um help your business and you're gonna pay them. Make sure you give them that, make sure you give them that 1099 so that they can uh claim their taxes. Okay. I know we have 30 minutes. I could go on. I don't just check a 14-minute check. Okay. What is it? Okay. All right, so we get back in there again and go to the next one. Okay, next steps. Action item. Okay. I'm just getting my paper over here. Ready? Okay. On the screen time, I think I missed. Let me just slide six. Oh, yeah, okay. What you need to do did I skip one? I'm sorry, folks. Yeah, I'm sorry, I skipped here. Okay, so the timeline reality check. Week one to four. Form the LLC and the business plan. Okay, so what do we mean by that? Any questions before I go forward? I am going to take a peek here again. Okay. No problem. Okay. No questions. Okay, so week one through four, forming your LLC and business plan. So the first four weeks, the way I did it when I started last year, uh, before December, I started getting all the paperwork together together to form the LLC for the business. Day-to-day senior care consultant services LLC. Okay. So I made a few mistakes. It's not a simplicity, it's not a simple process. There are, you know, I always say this to folks, there's also a lot of those campaign ads out there that, you know, especially on YouTube channel and and other places, social media places. Um, yes, you call me, come come for$495. We will we will get you an LLC, we'll put it all together for you, we'll submit the articles of organization uh from the publishing companies that need to uh take your evidence of your business is in existence. So you have to publicly place them in newspapers, one for six weeks daily, and one for uh um uh weekend it once a week. Uh yeah, six weeks on each. Once a week. So for instance, Newsday runs it once a week for six weeks, and uh a local one does it uh five days a week or whatever. So it's you know all weekly, weekly they call it for six weeks. Okay. Once you get that done, then you got to wait for the that uh to come back and you get your uh uh uh um they call it the uh certificate of um publication, and you have to give that back to New York State, and and that you have a website, like uh, you know, you go in, you can do all this online, okay? You pay them$50, whatever, and then they send it in. Um, there are fees. There's fees for the publication, okay. There's fees, uh, some of them can charge up to oh boy, let's see, it was like 400, 500 bucks total for me to do all that. And um, but it was still cheaper than if you would have gone with any of those campaign uh ads where they're telling you they'll form the LLC for you. It's just you just have to be very um, you know, very careful how you do everything. And yes, I mean they've been doing it for a while, so they can do it for you if you prefer that, but you can do it on your own. Um again, I had to go, you know, I had to register with the you know, the Department of Taxation, New York State, the federal government, um everything. I had to get the business name, it had to be perfect, and then I had to put it together in what they call the articles of organization, which needs to be submitted within 90 days. Um and same thing with the publication, everything's got to go in timely, and then you'll get approved for the New York State to open up the doors to your business. Coffee's good. Okay, so week five to twelve. Okay, complete state application. So get it completed, get it in, and it doesn't take that long um for to get your LLC. But now when you get into the um the state applications, now you want to open up the adult home, I mean the assisted living. Now you want to um take on the uh the medical care agency, home care, or you want to do the adult daycare center. Okay. You have to go to the Department of Health's website, find the appropriate application, and get it all in. Okay. And again, make sure you have all the material that you need. It's a lot of documents. Um, they're gonna ask for everything, right down to your moral character, um, background, everything. Get it all done. I know uh uh I've um when I when I do decide to send that application in um for my uh home care license with day-to-day senior care. It'll be a new uh division in our program. Um, but I'm going to have it ready. And the reason I bring this up is this, folks. This is why I'm I'm glad you're on our program because I tell it like it is, you know, raw, okay. Unscripted this part. I'm not looking down. It it's very, very difficult um to uh get everything together in a timely fashion, so you got to uh stay very focused, okay? They're gonna do a pre-audit before they they uh award you a license. So number one, you've got to have a place, a business address, preferably brick and mortar. You have to have um all your all your policies and procedures that New York State requires for a home care agency or for assisted living or for an adult daycare center, all has to be done. And then there's campaign ads out there for people that'll do that for you. But the bottom line is you can I don't I'm not wanting to say copy and paste, but New York State has all the regulations and they want you to take those and make them into policies and procedures for your uh New York State um facility. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hire uh the administrator because as an operator, folks, you cannot be the administrator. So I'm gonna take my active nursing home administrator and all the other certificates I've gotten. Um, and I'm going to um keep them on me as the owner, but I have to hire a special administrator who I will train uh to run the nursing uh care, the home care part of that. If it was an assisted living facility, same thing. The operator owner can't be the administrator as much as you want to, as much as I would. Well, I'd love to, you know, to be able to, you know, be in there hands-on, but I can do it from behind the scenes because I will train that person. I've got all the knowledge, you know, I've done it for three decades working in senior care and getting all my licenses and degrees. Um, and I've trained a lot of people, directors. I've had 10 directors at one time working in 280 to 400 bed facilities. Um, so you can just imagine how much knowledge and experience you get over time. And to apply that back uh to the person I hire or the persons I'm gonna hire, because I have other things going on too. But the persons I hire, I'm gonna make sure that they are adequately um trained. And New York State, that's another thing, folks. Weeks five to 12, you might as well add another week to that because you have to have all your staff ready when that state comes in and says, Okay, we're ready. Show me your stuff, show me your books, show me your policies. Who's your administrator? Who's your director of nursing? I better check the time, folks. I could go on here. Okay, I'm at the 23 minute mark. All right, any questions? No, okay. I'm gonna go back. Um, we're gonna have uh uh what do you call? Um, we'll have to move on because I could see already. I only got one, yeah, one one one thing left to do. I'll go into that in a second. So get that uh complete state application taken care of um properly. And the way to summarize that whole thing, because I got off track to summarize it all is I'm doing this is how I'm doing it. I am taking my time, slow growth, you know. Um first I want to build the non-medical. Okay, I want to show New York State when they come to me, because even though I got the licenses and the certificates and all that, I still need to show them how passionate I am about this business and how ready I'm prepared to take that step into home care. Because they're gonna see, oh, you did three years helping people out in in in in in in their homes and assisted livings and nursing homes and transitioning families and from hospital discharges to other places. Well, it's because um I just overheard someone talking, it's because I'm able to um do that. All right. So that's the way I'm doing it. Slow growth wins, folks. All right, when the time is ready, I'll know, and then I'll take the$2,000 it's gonna cost to get that uh application to um New York State. And there's no guarantee that it'll approve me, so they they could keep that money. All right. Anyone that puts the money, does not like you're gonna get it back. If they say you're denied, you can try again, you can appeal. Absolutely. And it's very hard to get any of these in New York State because they are there are so many. They're inundated with the larger assisted livings, and and real estate is so expensive. That's why I'm going up to my our our first uh move out of New York State is gonna be in Maine. And if any of you want to know more about that, you can go to my podcast on um, I just had it uh come out uh live in Maine. Uh, my maintenance director and I partnered up up there, and uh we're going to do um non-medical uh companionship up there. But you know what? Up there, they're licensed. When I was up there running an assisted living and nursing home up there, you didn't need to have a uh a New York State DOH license to do non-medical home care. Well, now you do, and I think New York State will eventually probably do that as well. So you want to get all your ducks in a row, folks, anyway, as you go forward. For the older folk that have been, you know, the franchised folks and the older people that have jumped in years or decades ago, they're already in. But to get in now, it's gonna get harder and harder. So get yourself prepared. And I'm not saying you can't start your business now, but just you know, you you want to make sure that you've got all that materials. And these campaign ads, they don't share all that with you. So you come see me. I'm uh I have expert consultation services. Just go to my website. All right, let's get into the last um one, which is uh week 12 to 24. We've got four minutes left to discuss this in our 30-minute podcast, state survey and approval. Okay, so now we're at the point. The auditors come in to any of our three facilities, okay? That whatever we chose, whether, you know, now in adult daycare, they're gonna come in, they're gonna see how it's uh set up, they're gonna look at everything, um, they're gonna um audit your uh staff, they're gonna see what um activities are gonna be involved in that daycare center, how is your transportation set up? Is it in the right location? All that, okay? And then eventually you'll be awarded your approval. And the assisted living facility, same thing. They're gonna go into your home, whether you uh bought a 20 uh residential uh bed facility, um, or you and started it from scratch, because some people have money to you know build it from scratch, or you you know, take on a larger one. Um, there are differences with 20 beds as opposed to anything over 100. I don't, I'm not gonna get into that tonight, but um, and then there's enhanced assisted living and there's enriched and all of these that I seen decades ago when they were just adult, just assisted living specifically, and then uh lobbyists and everybody went ahead and um started getting these more enhanced uh uh licenses to be able to do more for our uh residents in the senior care uh assisted living facilities, like hoyers and and other uh things that they can keep people there longer so they don't have to go in a nursing home. Okay. And then if you're going to do the home care, same thing. They're gonna want to see all your policies and everything. You they've seen everything. Now, what you got to do is they're gonna interview everybody. They may want to watch uh you uh get ready to show them something that you need to do with uh uh a resident. If you are um, oh, make sure, folks, too. If you are going for your home care and you have uh non-medical right now and you want to do home care, just make sure that everything in non-uh medical is non-medical because if they ask for something from there, technically you are not supposed to be doing anything until you get that license approved. So you cannot do any uh wound care or or perennial care or any of that stuff, okay? All right, folks. I tried to jam it all in within 30 minutes, and I see we're running down the clock. Any questions? I could run it over. All right. Okay. So again, I'm Charles Day from Day to Day Senior Care. Thank you all for attending my um starting your own senior care business. We will be back next week. Um, what we're gonna do is um, I was thinking we maybe uh get into finding our your state regulations, uh funding your mission. Let's see how we can uh fund that your mission, okay? All right, folks. Thank you all very, very much and have a great weekend. See you next Friday at 9 a.m.