Non-Medical Home Care Business Plan Template
A fill-in home care business plan: the eight SBA sections mapped to home care, sourced market numbers, and a 12-month financial model.
By Caregiver Scheduling Team ·
A home care business plan has to answer five questions: what services you offer and to whom, who pays, how you find caregivers, how you get clients, and when the agency covers its costs. Use the eight-section format the U.S. Small Business Administration describes, with a 12-month cash flow model at the core. Lenders read the model first.
What sections does a home care business plan need?
Use the SBA’s traditional format. Banks and SBA lenders expect it, and each section maps to a home care decision.
| SBA section | What it means for a home care agency | Help |
|---|---|---|
| Executive summary | Services, area, payers, launch date, funding needed | Write it last |
| Company description | Legal entity, license type, what makes you different | Do you need a license? |
| Market analysis | Service area, older adult population, competitors, local rates | Rates by state |
| Organization and management | Owner, administrator, scheduler, caregiver wages | Caregiver pay by state |
| Service line | Companion, homemaker, personal care, respite, live-in; what you will not do | Companion vs. personal care |
| Marketing and sales | Referral sources, online presence, intake process | How to get clients |
| Funding request | Startup cash, working capital, how it is used, repayment | Startup costs |
| Financial projections | 12-month monthly cash flow, then years two and three | Break-even |
The SBA says a traditional plan can run “dozens of pages.” For one location, 10 to 15 pages plus the model is enough.
Who are your payers, and why does it matter so much?
Payer mix drives your rate, your cash cycle and your software. Private-pay clients pay weekly or biweekly at your rate. Medicaid waiver and VA programs pay fixed rates on a lag, require authorizations and usually EVV. Long-term care insurance reimburses the client, so you still bill the family. State your expected mix for years one and two as separate revenue lines in the model. See private pay vs. Medicaid and the Medicaid waiver tool.
What numbers belong in the market section?
Use national figures for context and local figures for the plan. Three sourced numbers lenders accept:
- Demand. BLS projects employment of home health and personal care aides to grow 18% from 2025 to 2035, “much faster than the average for all occupations,” with about 760,500 openings a year (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook).
- Wages. The national median wage for the same occupation was $17.21 per hour in May 2025 (same source). Pull your state and metro figures from BLS as well.
- Price. The 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey puts the national median for non-medical in-home care at $35 per hour, up 3% on the year (CareScout). Use your state and metro medians from the same survey, not the national one.
Then add what no national source has: the agencies in your counties, what three of them charge, and which hospitals and senior living communities refer out.
How do you build the 12-month financial model?
Start from billed hours, not revenue. Everything else follows from hours, bill rate and caregiver wage. The SBA recommends monthly projections for the first year, so build 12 columns with these rows.
| Row | How to fill it |
|---|---|
| New clients | Realistic ramp: 1 to 3 a month in year one for most single-owner agencies |
| Active clients | Last month plus new, minus discharges |
| Billed hours | Active clients times average weekly hours times 4.33 |
| Revenue | Billed hours times bill rate, split by payer |
| Caregiver wages | Billed hours times wage, plus paid travel and training time |
| Payroll burden | Taxes, workers’ comp and leave, usually 13% to 22% of wages (details) |
| Overhead | Rent, insurance, software, marketing, office pay, licensing |
| Cash in | Private pay in the month billed; Medicaid and VA 30 to 60 days later |
| Cash out | Payroll every two weeks regardless of collections |
| Ending cash | Opening cash plus cash in minus cash out |
The gap between “Cash in” and “Cash out” is why new agencies run short. Caregivers are paid two weeks after a visit; a Medicaid payer may send the money six weeks later. Hold working capital for at least two months of payroll. Build your bill rate from the cost rows using how much to charge for home care.
What do lenders look for?
Owner cash in the deal, a model that covers debt payments by month six to nine, and conservative assumptions. The SBA asks for a funding request covering “the next five years” and a five-year financial outlook, so add annual totals for years two through five after the monthly year one. Expect questions about licensing timelines, insurance, recruiting and what happens if your biggest referral source dries up. Answer them in the plan. See first year running a home care agency.
How Caregiver Scheduling handles this
The operations section is easy to write when the system is already chosen. Caregiver Scheduling covers scheduling and route optimization, a caregiver app with geofenced GPS check-in, and authorized-hours tracking on Growth and up. Timesheets, payroll, QuickBooks export and private-pay invoices are coming soon. Put it in the overhead row as a known number. $199/month for up to 10 caregivers or $299/month for up to 50, free for 30 days.
FAQ
Do I need a business plan to start a home care agency? Not by law. You need the financial model to price correctly and raise enough cash.
How long should it be? 10 to 15 pages plus the model. The SBA’s one-page lean format is fine for your own planning, not for a loan.
How many clients should I plan for in year one? Most single-owner agencies add one to three clients a month at first. Plan on the low end.