Accounting for Small OT Home Mod Businesses

Accountant John Sullivan was our special guest speaker discussing accounting, entrepreneurship and business structures for small businesses, in particular, occupational therapy home modification businesses.

Enjoy the discussion:

AIM BIG Meeting Jan. 4- OT's working with Builders Pilot with Special Guests

This was one spectacular meeting, I know I learned a lot.  Thank you so very much to all our special guests and group members for being a part of this meeting.  Feel the blessings. 

Together we can grow exponentially!!

Pilot program for OTs working with Builders-December 21st AIM BIG Meeting

This meeting centered on developing a pilot program for occupational therapists working with builders, the first of hopefully many discussions, below is the video and below that is a summary.

This meeting focused on defining a pilot for working with builders.

Occupational Therapists working with Builders on Home Modifications

I am often asked what is the best way for occupational therapists to work with builders.  I'm not sure of what works for everyone but I can tell you what works for me and what I've heard from other OTs that are working with builders.  Of course every OT that has answered this question will have a different point of view.

I started my company Functional Homes, Inc. as a construction company.  I was a single mom of three and was looking for a business opportunity to bring in additional income to allow me to take my children traveling.  I was also a competitive sailor.  One of the other crew members on the sailboat owned a construction company and was renting wheelchair ramps which was quite lucrative.  We started talking and he told me he'd give me 25% of the take of every wheelchair ramp job I brought in.  At the time I thought, well I know plenty of people with handicaps so I started referring clients to him.  After a while he got a job remodeling a home for accessibility but did not know how to make a home accessible,  So we agreed on a 25/75 split and I did the design, chose the materials, and hired a few subcontractors and he did the construction.

AIM BIG Meeting on October 19th with Susy Stark on Home Modifications, Billing, and Evaluations

Great meeting with Susy Stark from Washington University

AIM BIG-Business Plan Development Meeting for OT Home Mod Business Part 1

We are beginning work on our business plans, we are in the incubation phase right now.  Here is our last meeting recording.

My Dilemma. Can it be a Marketing Device?

I was called in to provide a bid for an addition for a man with a LE amputation that is wheelchair bound.  The case manager and insurance company want our company to provide a bid for modifying a house for accessibility and a bid for building an addition.  We are competing against other construction companies for this project.   Putting together a good design for this project will take several hours of our design team.  If the client chooses our design and a different builder to do the work than that is several 'donated' hours by us.

I have done designs and construction for this case manager/insurance adjustor team before with very good results.  In fact the case manager was showcasing an addition we built to many of his other clients.

We typically get paid for our designs and provide a bid for free based on the construction specifications and the designs, that is how it has worked in the past with this case manager/insurance adjustor (on several jobs) until we had a job that went bad.

Job that went bad:  

Notes from Monetizing Home Mods Meeting June 15, 2015

MONETIZING HOME MODIFICATION BUSINESS

JUNE 15, 2015 VIRTUAL MEETING

MEETING NOTES

GUEST SPEAKER - SCOTT ANDERLE

Scott is a physical therapist who owned 13 PT clinics, then founded a business called Specialized Home Design, focused on universal accessible design.  In his journey to modify homes, he became a coordinator and consultant for home modifications.  In his role as a consultant, Scott evaluated homes and made recommendations for home modifications.  In his role as a coordinator, Scott worked with case managers and brought in contractors and architects. 

Scott then invented Comprehensive Home Evaluation Report (CHER) - an online tool for home evaluations.  This is a powerful home evaluation tool that supports information fill-in and embedded pictures and compiles a finished report from the data.  The CHER can be found at: http://www.shdesigns.net/cherreg

(Note from Karen:  Scott’s tool is more comprehensive than Carolyn Sithong’s tool.  Scott’s tool is appropriate for complex home evaluations that need to be very detailed for other professionals and even litigation purposes.  Carolyn’s tool is more appropriate for aging-in-place evaluations where your recommendations are more for lay people and you don’t have large amounts of time to spend.  Both are great tools for their applications.)