Evaluating the Budgets
I now realize why so many companies choose a focus – because it the only financially smart way to go! I discovered by eliminating skilled nursing staff, my insurance would decrease as well as an entire RN salary. So, to start out, my budget would be the second of the two, without the skilled RN and I would make a goal to have my billed hourly reflect what is shown is Scenario 3.
There are many other factors that will affect my budget that are hard to account for without actually being in business. First, hourly rate can differ for private pay versus Medicare versus funding through Senior and People with Disabilities. Insurance is a big factor that can make or break a company. Insurance rates would be a lot lower if skilled nursing care was not performed in the home because so much liability is released when a caregiver is limited to assisting with only Activities of Daily Living. Lastly, start up costs are huge but many expenses will level out as time goes by. Accreditation is a huge expense that is required in order to provide services to Medicare/Medicaid clients.
Technology Used
For all of my budget calculating I used statistical functions in Excel. These helped me sum my expenses and income as well as calculate the billed hourly income in an efficient manner. These functions helped me quickly figure out the billed income by easily adjusting the rates and recalculating. I used the following functions:
=sum(L1*L7)
=sum(L1:L7)
Technology in the Future
I used Excel because I have recently learned the efficiency of the statistical options on the program through a class I’m taking this term. There are many more useful functions under Data-> Data Analysis that could help me reach projected goals and point out where my budget discrepancies may be.
If I were actually going into business soon, I would try to contact a similar company in Oregon (so that the market is relatively the same) and ask to take a look at their budget. Also the further I go in my education and work experience the more knowledge I will gain about appropriate rates in different circumstances and the best approach to serving the client versus making my business successful.
Also, Clackamas Community College has free community education classes during the summer. This summer they are offering two free courses; one, Starting up your Business and two, Introduction to Quickbooks. Quickbooks is a very common method of record keeping for small business’ and I have not yet learned how to use it.