4 Important Steps to Take When Opening a Dialysis Center
If you are involved in the medical field, and are looking for a way to serve your local community, a dialysis center is a great way to serve your local community. For individuals that need dialysis, having access to a nearby location to a dialysis machine is literally a matter of life or death. If your community doesn't have a dialysis center, adding one could greatly improve the quality of life for members of your community who have to travel outside of your local community multiple times a week to get the treatment they need.
Obtain a Certificate of Need (CON)
The first thing that you need to do is get a Certificate of Need (CON) for your health care center. Certificate of Need are granted by your state's health association. Having a CON will help you work with other community medical services and help you integrate your clinic into the local medical community. Additionally, having a CON will help you with the construction costs.
Lease Your Equipment
When you start a dialysis center, you don't need to purchase all of the equipment. You can reduce the capital investment required to start up your own dialysis center by renting the dialysis and large medical equipment you will need. Be aware that you will have to put down a deposit and potentially sign a rental contract for the equipment.
You can also lease the furniture in your clinic as well. There are numerous companies that provide office furniture equipment for lease.
Renting equipment can really minimize the cost of starting up your clinic and can allow you to figure out what equipment you really need before you invest in purchasing equipment. Additionally, when you rent equipment, it often comes with high-quality service plans, so you have support in place if something happens to your equipment.
Find Medical & Administrative Staff
The next thing you need to do is find the right medical and administrative staff for your clinic. To start with, you want to hire medical staff who have experience with dialysis and who understand the practice of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, the two primary dialysis methods.
Next, you need to make sure that you hire the right administrative staff to get your business rolling. You need to hire someone who has experience with medical billing and who is proficient with ordering medical supplies. You need an accountant or bookkeeper to run the financial side of your business. You need front-desk staff who are skills at talking with patients and meeting their needs. Your administrative staff is just as important as your medical staff to the success of your clinic.
Narrow Your Niche Audience
Finally, find a unique angle that makes your dialysis clinic stand out. This unique angle needs to be related to how you provide patients with care. Perhaps you have a day care center for your patients' young children when they are getting dialysis and a lounge center for their older children to hang out.
Maybe your clinic stands out because of the quality of entertainment that you provide patients during their dialysis or because you have the comfiest chairs for patients to sit in while getting their treatment. Think about your clients and what they need to make this a more comfortable experience and cater to those needs to help draw patients to your dialysis center.
When opening a dialysis center, be sure to work with organizations like GDP CONSULTING LLC to ensure you start off on the right foot.