Another home-based care company has entered the franchise arena.
First Day Homecare recently announced the launch of the franchising of its brand — making it the first franchise in the U.S. to specialize in pediatric home care services, according to the company.
Emily Wiechmann — First Day Homecare’s CEO and co-founder — believes that the move will bring value to the beneficiaries of pediatric home care services.
“These are medically complex infants and children,” she told Home Health Care News. “Children that have tracheostomies, ventilators, feeding tubes — very highly complex medical needs. It’s been very evident to me throughout my career that there are not enough providers out there that [deliver] pediatric private-duty nursing services.”
One of the reasons why there aren’t as many providers delivering these services is because of the roadblocks that currently exist, according to Wiechmann.
“There’s things like accreditation requirements; higher licensing requirements in some of the states; Medicaid enrollment is an absolute must, which can sometimes get a little bit complicated,” she said. “The barrier to entry is a little bit greater, but the benefit is that once you get through that entry, and start providing the services, there’s a great volume of patients out there just waiting for your services.”
First Day Homecare’s main services include medication administration, vital sign monitoring, IV infusions, tracheostomy care, feeding tube management and home ventilator management.
Additionally, the company offers personal care services, Medicare-certified home health care and applied behavioral analysis therapy.
Back in 2020, the company opened First Day Homecare in a single location in Flint, Michigan. At the time, the company had no plans to move into a franchise business model.
This changed when First Day Homecare began seeing success.
“We wanted to grow and expand and continue to help infants and children across the United States,” Wiechmann said. “We weren’t really sure at that time what would be the best and most efficient way for us to do that. After meeting with some franchise consultants, they really encouraged us, and told us that our brand was franchisable, which was a surprise to us. They told us that we actually were on a pretty good path to franchise and to be first to market.”
Since opening, First Day Homecare’s flagship office has grown 5-15% month over month. The company is now doing $7.2 million in annual revenue, Wiechmann noted.
Harvey Mathews, the company’s COO and co-founder, pointed to First Day Homecare’s ability to retain staff as one of its main growth drivers.
“There’s a lot of moving schedules, and there’s a lot of things that come up that can’t be predicted, so I think really our internal staff being so attentive to both our nurses and our patients is a big reason for our success,” he told HHCN.
Currently, First Day Homecare is eligible to sell franchises in 35 states.
What’s more, the company is positioned to advocate in states that present a more challenging operating environment.
“We’re willing to take on those individual fights in some of the states that aren’t as ideal because we know that those states need our services, and we know that we will get through certificate-of-need processes,” Wiechmann said. “We are ready to advocate in the states who don’t have the greatest reimbursement rates. It all comes back to our original mission, that we’re here to raise awareness about this service, and help these patients who need this level of care get easier access to the care.”
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