Home health agencies provide much needed services, both in terms of providing home healthcare as well as providing staffing to local healthcare facilities, including hospitals. They are often a very complicated, labor intensive endeavor requiring many manhours, and logistical planning. They often employ many healthcare professionals, including nurses (LPN and RN), physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, certified nursing assistants, home health aides, and others to meet the needs of their various clients.

A successful home health agency business requires that same level of care as any other business, including employing skilled personnel that help develop the business. Because this type of business is highly competitive, non-compete agreements are the norm, and are highly recommended and favored. Home health agencies may also have staffing contracts and other agreements which delineate the method and manner of delivering care and being compensated in that regard. Because there are so many different providers of this type of care, it is imperative that all agreements be reviewed and, if necessary, changes made in order to try and protect the home healthcare business. For example, some agreements may have provisions which indicate that if a dispute were to arise, the business could have to seek redress in a venue which is either not convenient or far away from the business. The venue provisions could even be in another state altogether. Accordingly, it is very important to have any agreements carefully reviewed, and if necessary, changed. Recently, we reviewed a proposed agreement for a client and determined that if a dispute arose, the dispute would have to be litigated in Omaha, Nebraska. Certainly, a Florida business should not have to travel to Nebraska to seek judicial relief or be subject to unknown laws and requirements of a different state.

Having counsel assist you in both, staffing agreements and hiring and retention practices, can end up saving you from both headaches and money draining expenses down the road; it’s  much less expensive to avoid pitfalls than to have to dig yourself out of a ditch after the damage is complete. With almost 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry, we can help. You don’t want to be penny wise and pound foolish in this highly competitive field.