Scenario: Your best friend works for an In-Home Health Provider Company (IHHPC) in Palm Beach County, Florida. Your friend comes to you and explains that the In-Home Health Provider Co. wants to expand the next year to Broward County and Dade County. Your friend explains the company is dealing with a cash flow problem and if it is not figured out over the next six months the IHHPC will not meet the asset requirement for the expansion loan. IHHPC Revenue:

80% private pay patients.

10% Health insurance.

10% Long Term Care Insurance Policy.

Process at IHHPC: Your friend explains this is how the IHHPC works. A patient would call in and request a nurse for eight hours, seven days a week, starting the next day. The company would send the nurse the next day, then bill the patient on a weekly cycle. The IHHPC would mail a statement to the patient at the end of the first week of service. By the time the patient would get around to writing a check, and mailing it back in to the IHHPC, sometimes the company would not receive payment for six to eight weeks. The company would be paying the nurse weekly although not receiving payment for services yet.

What would you advise him or her and explain why?

- By including in the terms of the contract that the service has to be paid for within a certain period such as a maximum of 4 weeks and then follow up each week on the customer so that they remember that they have a due bill.

- Giving payment based discounts such as a 5% discount if the service is paid for within a fortnight.

- Telling the customer to pay first, if not the full amount, at least a down payment with the total being settled at a later date.

These are but just some ways of getting the money faster but the bottomline is that payment needs to be received faster because the nurses are paid on a weekly basis.

2. Focus more on Patients with Insurance.

The company has a very low clientele base that use insurance and they should aim to increase that figure. This is because Insurance pays out timely and IHHPC will be sure that their payment will come because an Insurance company is bound by certain rules and regulations. For security of payments therefore, they should increase their insurance based clientele.