Guide · Medicaid
Private pay: you set the rate, you invoice the family, money lands in days-to-weeks, and marketing is your problem. Medicaid: the state sets the rate (invariably lower), enrollment takes its own months-long clock, EVV and documentation rules ride along — and referrals come from the system instead of your advertising.
The decision is mostly a runway decision. Run the true-cost calculator twice: once at a 15-day payment lag (healthy private pay) and once at 45 days (a realistic early Medicaid lag). The difference between the two totals is the price of choosing Medicaid first — payable in cash you must actually have.
Start private, stabilize staffing and cash, then enroll in Medicaid with the license, the EVV choice and the documentation habits already built. Or start Medicaid with eyes open and a funded runway. What fails is drifting into Medicaid because a case manager called — before the enrollment, EVV and rate math were ever run.
Guides are general; verdicts are specific. The license checker applies your state's rules to your service mix, and the cost calculator prices your opening from the same dataset this guide cites.
The free checkers give you the verdict and the number. The Kit gives you the working papers: your state's application packet walked through in filing order, the policies-and-procedures binder spec (what your binder must contain — never a boilerplate binder), the administrator self-audit, the insurance & bond spec sheet, the Medicaid gate map, the franchise-vs-independent 10-year worksheets, and the payroll-runway planner.
$49 one-time payment
Included in the $49 HomeCareLicenseCheck Kit
