Launch Your Dream: 4 Easy Steps to Start a Residential Assisted Living
Nov 12, 2024
Thinking about building a residential assisted living facility? You're in the right place. Entering this field is rewarding but comes with unique challenges. Whether you're driven by a desire to provide great care to the elderly or to join a growing industry, this blog will be a helpful resource.
We'll cover four essential steps to get you started, providing a high-level overview and actionable insights to launch your business successfully. We've got you covered, from understanding regulations to securing financing and creating a safe, welcoming environment. Ready to turn your dream into reality and make a difference for the elderly? Read on for the basics of opening a residential assisted living facility.
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Step 1: Obtain a Certificate of Occupancy
Getting a certificate of occupancy is the first important step in establishing your residential assisted living home. This certificate certifies that your property complies with the local building standards and zoning criteria for operation as an assisted care home. Begin by contacting your municipality's zoning and planning departments. This is important if you plan to turn a home into an assisted living facility. They will walk you through the zoning regulations and discuss the possibility of rezoning your property.
Next, an inspection with the fire marshal should be set up. They will assess your property's safety criteria, such as corridor lengths and exit routes. Before obtaining the certificate, you must execute any adjustments the fire marshal needs. In addition, considering your location, you may require approval from additional city departments. The procedure can be time-consuming due to the involvement of several parties and potential property changes. Obtaining your certificate of occupancy early can help you create a firm foundation for your assisted living home and avoid unexpected setbacks.
Step 2: Consult the Health Agency
The next step is to work directly with your state's health agency. This agency oversees the licensing and regulatory control of assisted living facilities. Connect with them beforehand during the entire procedure. They will give you a complete list of requirements, including the certificate of occupancy, policies, and procedures required for a license. Know that the licensing process includes a thorough application and inspection to ensure your facility fulfills the state's health and safety requirements. This can be a lengthy process, so patience and thoroughness are required. Create or acquire the appropriate rules and procedures for your facility. These documents are important for ensuring compliance and operational effectiveness. Consider hiring an expert or purchasing pre-made templates to help with this procedure.
Be familiar with the different license types. A new license is required if you open a new facility, and a change of ownership license is likely required if you buy an existing facility. Each has its own criteria and processes. Understanding these distinctions and preparing properly will make licensing go more smoothly.
Step 3: Develop a Marketing Strategy
Effective marketing is essential for bringing residents to your facility. Create a website and promote your business using social media platforms like Facebook. Consider running Google Ads to boost visibility. Networking with local hospitals, rehab centers, and assisted living facilities can also provide helpful references.
Ensure that your marketing communications clearly express who you are, what services you provide, and where you are located. Consistency in your marketing efforts can help potential residents and their families remember your facility when they require it. Engaging with the community and having a visible presence will gradually increase trust and recognition.
Step 4: Hire Qualified Staff
Staffing is one of the most important aspects of any assisted living facility. Start the recruitment process beforehand, particularly for important positions such as administrators. Indeed and Facebook (although less effective lately) are great locations to start your search. Explain your timeline and operational start date to potential hires. This transparency will assist you in finding applicants who are available to work around your schedule.
Understand that the assisted living industry has a high turnover rate. Consider methods to keep your employees, such as competitive pay, perks, and a nice work atmosphere. Before you open, meet all of the state's staffing criteria. Adequate staffing is a regulatory requirement critical for providing quality care to your residents.
Starting an assisted living facility can be complex, but you can achieve your goal with the right guidance. Download our Business Plan Checklist to create a comprehensive plan for your facility. This tool will provide a roadmap to success, covering all essential aspects, from financial planning to operational strategies.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
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Transcript
00:00:00
I've got four simple steps to help you get started doing your own residential assisted living facility if you're interested in learning those four simple steps make sure you stick around for today's video hey everybody it's Brandon Gustafson and welcome back to Assisted Living investing happy to have you on the Channel with me today and I have an exciting topic for you I've got four simple steps for you to follow to get started on your your own residential assisted living facility things that you
00:00:33
can just Implement right away start the process and uh kind of walk you through the highlevel pieces of getting a facility started uh if you're interested uh in learning more about that and those steps and and get even deeper into them uh I've got a course that I'll be releasing on the website Assisted Living investing. net uh make sure you get over there I've got my underwriting calculator so you can download that and you'll get uh a 12we course kind of condensed version of it uh through an
00:01:05
email newsletter that will also come out to you and give you some tips and tricks and action items for you to be successful while I'm building the course uh that's going to get really in-depth but in today's video I really wanted to dive into four simple steps for you to understand uh as you get started on your journey uh kind of outlined in who you need to talk to how this works and things actions that you can take take to get you on your path to getting your own residential assisted living facility the
00:01:37
first one is what is called a certificate of occupancy and I talk about this uh quite a bit I feel like I've talked about it several times if not then I'm talking about it now so uh what is a certificate of occupancy it is basically saying yeah you can operate your facility in this space this is completely separate from working with the health department completely separate from your license this is is you've talked to City zoning and planning you've talked to the Fire Marshall you've gotten everything um in
00:02:08
place that says yeah you can operate a facility in this spot it's okay the the HOA has approved it all of those things are kind of um in in this process so um what you're going to need to do there uh I would highly suggest you reach out to City zoning and planning for your M municipality if you don't know where you're you want to start uh you want look at converting a a home this is also an incredible spot for you to start is talking to City zoning and planning for local municipalities just to see you
00:02:40
know hey I've got this house I want to turn it into an assisted living facility is that possible here if it's not um do I need to rezone it what is that rezoning process like um how do I go through that process and that person the city planner is going to kind of walk you through the process that you need to go through through to help you get um that certificate of occupancy they're also going to tell you hey you got to go talk to the fire department the Fire Marshal's got to come out and walk the
00:03:10
facility and make sure that um the hallways and the doorways and uh give you a maximum occupancy everything is going to be in line with what you need to operate your assisted living facility so once you get that done and it this can take a while because you're working with uh several different people you're working you know with city um zoning and planning um there might be other people at the city you got to talk to the fire marshal your city might have something different um that you got to reach out
00:03:36
to um this can take a while it's a lot of schedules um it might even be you know you you've got to implement you've got to make the changes to the house to the property before you can get that certificate of occupancy so if Fire Marshall comes in and says your hallways are they're too narrow um you've got to um expand them by 4 in then you know you've got a big renovation project on your hand an example of this actually we were purchasing our facility in Idaho and in the process of doing the change
00:04:07
of ownership with them uh what we found is we needed to uh have an extra external facing restroom in the facility so the we were licensed uh for 16 beds and the rule um based off the fire department uh what they they do in the city of NAA Idaho is I think it was for every 10 individuals in a home you have to have a public restroom and so we had to uh work with the sellers and have them do this um renovation and then we paid them back um once we purchased the facility but they had to take one of the
00:04:47
restrooms that was facing internally to a bedroom and we had to seal that up on one side and then put an external facing door and make sure I had a a sink a shower and a toilet um as well what it needed to have inside of the that um bathroom so we had to do that renovation before we could um move forward with the application process the change of ownership process with the health department so just those types of little things you want to make sure you're having those conversations because if
00:05:17
you don't you're going to get to the point where you're trying to do your license and they're going to say well did you talk to the fire department about this did you talk to your zoning um department and figure out what they needed to do and you know the answer could very easily be uh oh crap I got to go back and and talk to them about those things and uh so you're going to have to start over so certificate of occupancy super important step for you to to know and also just a
00:05:42
great research step for you as you are getting started uh on your path to getting your own assisted living facility so that's number one number two is talking to the health agency in your state um so this could be could be the state uh like Colorado it's um C cdph is is the department that does licensing uh in uh Idaho I think it's I can't remember ihw I think is what it's called so it's just going to it's going to have some acronym and it's going to be different for your state on what it is
00:06:15
but they're going to be the licensing governing body for assisted living and you want to have conversations with them I actually would highly suggest having that conversation very early on with them uh CU they're going to give you a list of things that you need to have including the certificate of occupancy to get your license in place so they're going to help kind of walk you through the process here and what you need to do something to understand with the health agency is this is another long
00:06:43
application process um you'll have to have that certificate of occupancy is one thing you need but they're going to have another list of things they're going to do their own separate inspection um to make sure that you've got the facility up to their standards there's going to be policies and procedures that you got to do uh this is a big piece of it and you hear this as you get into the world of residential Assisted Living uh or just assisted living in general uh policies and
00:07:10
procedures are a big thing they are costly I have a video that I've done that talks about um purchasing them or working with a consultant to get your own policies and procedures so something that you might want to look into I'll make sure I link that up above uh but working with that health agency it's it's a long arduous process but it's what's going to allow you to operate your facility so it's absolutely necessary that you go and you talk to them and work with them and I suggest
00:07:38
doing it as soon as possible so you can really start moving things along uh through through the process uh but just going into it recognize you're working with government and it takes a long time to do anything and uh there's going to be a lot of paperwork and it's going to be a long process and it's not necessarily fun um but you absolutely have to do it if you want to operate your facility this is how you obtain your license uh something that I wanted to make sure I point out to you is there's
00:08:10
a couple different license types there's one that is kind of starting a brand new facility so if you're doing a conversion or building something from the ground up then you're going to get a new facil a new a new license um but if you're purchasing an existing one you're going to do what a lot of States call a change of ownership or a chow um and they application processes are slightly different a lot of the same paperwork is needed generally with a chow it's going to be a little less expensive and maybe
00:08:37
a little less invasive of inspections because you already there's already a license on the facility um but they're they're pretty similar in the things that they're asking for and what you're trying to do with them but you kind of want to understand language wise what you're asking of the state when you say hey I am purchasing an existing facility and I need to to do a change of ownership what is that process that's a question you want to ask or hey I'm I'm looking at converting this house and I'm
00:09:07
talking with the municipality it's zoned correctly I've had the Fire Marshall come out and they told me what I need to do there and I want to get a new uh a new license what is your application process for me to become a new facility that's the question that you want to ask them so just kind of language wise how you want to talk to them and the question that you want to ask that shows them that you know what you're talking about right so that's going to help you uh get to that point where you are
00:09:31
coming into this and you you have a better understanding of what you're trying to ask them to really make some progress down down the line the third simple step that I'm going to share with you is marketing this is a question I see quite a bit as well is where and how and what to Market and those are all excellent questions actually uh so marketing is a big piece and what you can do in the beginning even before you have your licenses um you can start putting yourself out there and you would
00:09:59
put like pending license get with your state and see what they would the the verbus that they would use but the the gist of it is pending license um is is you want to have like a little Banner on there you know we would put be well Assisted Living pending license and um put it out there um that we're we're looking for new residents you could be putting this out there on um things like Facebook uh you could create a website uh you could do Google ads for it or you could even get out and and start
00:10:29
networking with people in the community um doing face-to-face interactions and one-on ones and talking to people is great and then the fifth one that I would tell you is get in front of hospitals and rehab centers and uh those types of places that are going to be looking for placement even other assisted living facilities they don't always accept every single resident that comes to them for one reason or another the level of care um their Medicaid versus private pay like there's a myriad of reasons it's
00:11:00
not just because uh crap this person's horrible I don't want to take them it's it's more of a they're just not a good fit for what we're trying to do here but you starting up your facility might be willing to take that person so uh even networking with other facilities is not a horrible decision um as you get into this industry you'll see that people like we're all in this industry because we care a lot about people and so we're not um you know we're not bad people by
00:11:28
any means uh we're happy to help each other out uh which is why I have the channel to help you out and uh give you more information uh but I was listening recently re listening to a video by Robert King he's also got a YouTube channel that uh has uh you know he kind of coaches you on a few things and he said something that I was I thought was really profound so I'm going to uh kind of give him credit on this uh with what he said he said where um let's see it was how to let them know there's three
00:11:56
key Parts there's who uh what and where so you want to let them know who you are you want to have your name out there you want to be like you know I we're this is who I am I'm Bob's Assisted Living what I do is I help people uh residents like you that need memory care or residents like you that need uh Services because you you have Medicaid um those types of things you want to kind of tell them hey I'm Bob um and I am telling you right now that I serve this population if you're part of that population we'd love
00:12:29
to have you in our house and then you want to tell them where you're operating so you want to say you know I'm in Salt Lake City I'm in uh boy Idaho I'm in Los Angeles wherever you are you want to make sure that you're talking to them about that and uh telling them specifically where you're operating your facility so who what and where three key parts of any marketing message but if you do that you're going to be a lot more successful in in talking to people and that is talking to Residents or if
00:12:58
you're doing in person marketing uh you know kind of networking type stuff you want to keep those things in mind as well you want to say who you are where you're operating and what you do what you're looking for and if you do those things people are going to keep that in their mind they might not know it immediately but they're going to remember you uh especially if you're consistent at going to some of those um networking events and then they'll start thinking oh my mom actually might be a
00:13:22
good fit for that facility um she's kind of declining and I think she would be a good fit or my neighbor or my aunt or whatever is um they they might be people that are good fit for you so have those conversations open your mouth and and talk through it and the fourth simple tip that I'm going to give you is Staffing so I see this question a lot actually on different forums that I I participate in and it is kind of around like when should I start looking to hire my staff I would say once you're pretty
00:13:53
deep into the process of getting your assisted living facility with the health agency that's when you want to start looking for for for Staffing for Idaho uh Colorado we actually were able to convince the administrator there to stay on with us after we purchased the facility so that was great in Idaho U that wasn't the case the previous owner was the administrator and so she was leaving and so we had to hire somebody and so I put it out there we actually use Facebook for that um as of the
00:14:18
recording of this video in 2023 Facebook has changed their way of of doing Staffing though um and job posting and it's not as useful as it used to be um frankly so indeed is another really good spot that you can go to and and post jobs U but we put it out there and we were on a Facebook group and said hey we're a new assisted living facility we need an administrator who can help us and well we did that I want to say we started doing that in like December of 2020 and we didn't close on the facility
00:14:49
until February of 2021 and so I had my person hired essentially uh and ready to go to be our administrator and she was willing to wait for us and uh was working some other kind of a side job and until we were ready to to bring her on and be our facility administrator so uh something for you to just kind of be aware of you can start having those conversations early on just be transparent with that person you know if you're not going to close until February and you're talking to them in December
00:15:18
you got to tell them hey it's you know it's going to be 60 days before we get this which for some administrators is fine um we were going through a process of interviewing administrators recently and a lot of them said I need to give at least 30 days notice to my company um before I can leave and so you know you're you're going to be able to find somebody that will work on your timeline uh but it's it's important for you to do that um I I would say the majority of staff that are there will probably stick
00:15:47
with you when you initially purchase or start a facility if you purchase an existing facility obviously if you're starting a facility you're not going to have any staff but if you're purchasing an existing a lot of the staff will stay but um you're probably going to have a lot of turnover pretty early in the process so just something for you to be aware of this is already a high turnover position High turnover job um market so you just want to kind of be aware of that but Staffing it's okay to start
00:16:12
early and then just be transparent with people we're you know I want to get you hired um but we don't start our facility uh we don't begin operating our facility until uh you know for a month and a half or however many weeks um just so that they're aware of it but it's okay to start having those conversations and start the process of looking for your staff before you operate and so I'd highly suggest you do that you definitely want to have your staff in place by the time you start operating
00:16:40
because otherwise you can't operate so you need to make sure that you have your Staffing uh in place hope this information was helpful for you these four simple steps uh I think will really get you on the path to getting there uh if you want more of this type of information get over to Assisted Living investing. net I've got a free underwriting calculator that you can download there and you'll get on uh my email sequence that gives you tips and tricks with action items for a 12we program um to get you started while I'm
00:17:07
building my course that I'm going to make super affordable for you so you can kind of learn the process the ins and outs of starting your own assisted living facility are you interested in learning more about residential assisted living but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing we're here to help you through the process start to finish thanks for watching and have a great day I
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