Home Health Companions Among Fastest-Growing Private Companies

This year’s edition of Inc. magazine’s annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S. featured a number of in-home care providers that have made jaw-dropping business gains.

To earn a spot on the 2019 Inc. 5000 list, released earlier this month, companies had to be privately owned, U.S.-based and independent, meaning they couldn’t be a subsidiary or division of another company.

Among the several in-home care companies to make the list was Home Health Companions, a Dallas-based licensed home health provider that offers in-home companion and caregiver services, private duty nursing and aging life care services.

Founded in 2011, the company employed 24 people five years ago; it currently employs 80. In 2018, Home Health Companions brought in about $3.1 million in revenue.

Company leadership attributes some of its success to its private-pay model, which it sees as more stable than Medicare or Medicaid.

“The benefit for us is that we work directly with our client,” Lisa Shardon, president of Home Health Companions, told Home Health Care News. “We have to adhere to the standards of licensing in Texas, but our model is that we get paid by our clients, so it’s based on client need.”

Still, working within the private-pay space has its challenges as well.

Home Health Companions has to stay on top of creating new programs and specialized services that will attract new clients while accommodate existing ones, according to Shardon.

One of the ways the company did this was by implementing home health care in its lines of business back in 2014.

“We started as a caregiving company only, and then our clients wanted additional services and that’s where the home health component came from,” she said. “Our clients started out almost like the life cycle of our business, only needing personal assistance services maybe three times a week. Then, as our clients age in place, they need more services.”

Additionally, Home Health Companions credits partnerships as one of the main drivers of its growth, though Shardon declined to go into details. The company’s three-year growth rate in 2018 was 110%, according to Inc.

“We looked where we could have some partnerships,” Shardon said. “We have partnerships with communities and other agencies, where caregiving is not necessarily their primary business. So they partner with us to do their caregiving and sometimes their supplemental staffing.”

In addition to Home Health Companions, other in-home care providers to make the Inc. 5000 list included HealthFlex Home Health Services, 123 Home Care, Senior Solutions Home Care, Blossom Ridge Home Health, Georgetown Home Care, Capitol Home Health, AMR Care Group and California CareGivers Home Healthcare. Several larger, more established providers made the list as well, including 24 Hour Home Care and FirstLight HomeCare.

“[Acting on] our employee feedback has also been very important in terms of making our company successful,” Shardon said.

Moving forward, Home Health Companions is looking into innovative ways to incorporate technology into the business.

“We are using an integrated technology system; it allows clients to look at what the caregiver is documenting in real-time,” Shardon said. “Our clients like that, so we will probably do more of that in the future. We would like to be able to have three-way conversations with the client, caregiver and supervisor. That is something that we want to get implemented.”