Homecare Group Intership

Homecare Group is accept applicants for 12 week student internships. Interns will complete a research project before completing a second project to apply their research.

Areas of Interest

1. Advanced Market Structure Analysis

• Geographic Contiguity Mapping: Identify small-to-mid-sized agencies in high-demand, low-competition contiguous zones that can be quickly consolidated into a platform, replicating the Altocare model. Consolidation and operational efficiencies are central to PE success in the sector.

• Local Payer Mix Granularity: Drill down into specific MA PPO/HMO growth rates, local Fee-for-Service patient density, and Medicaid waiver utilization rates to quantify the precise reimbursement risk market-by-market.

• PE Buyer Profile Modeling: Create a profile of agencies most likely to be acquired by strategic or institutional buyers (e.g., high revenue growth, established non-skilled division, technology adoption) to prioritize targets before they enter the auction process, capitalizing on the sector's rapid growth rate (projected at 8.5% annually)

2. Detailed Regulatory Risk Modeling and Arbitrage

• Reciprocity and CON Analysis: Map state policies regarding licensing reciprocity for caregivers and Certificate of Need (CON) laws for new agency establishment. States with permissive or low-barrier may allow for rapid, low-CapEx organic expansion of the high-margin private-pay segment.

• CMS Compliance Burden Scorecard: Detail the compliance burden associated with mandatory systems (e.g., the complex crosswalk for mapping responses on the current Outcome and Assessment Information Set-E (OASIS-E) to the prior OASIS-D responses ) for skilled versus non-skilled agencies. This provides quantitative evidence of the lower regulatory risk profile associated with non-skilled operations, further bolstering the private-pay investment thesis.

3. The Economic Modeling of Caregiver Wage Investment

This project directly addresses the most critical operational constraint—the 77% turnover—and quantifies the ROI of the proven solution—75th percentile wages leading to a 12.6% retention increase. This research transforms a perceived wage increase cost into a demonstrable capital investment.  

Goal: Create a dynamic financial model that calculates the true Internal Rate of Return (IRR) on capital invested in achieving the 75th percentile caregiver wage benchmark in a specific geographic area.

Methodology: The model must compare the increased wage expense to the financial upside derived from three primary variables:

1. Reduced Cost of Acquisition: Lowering the expensive recruitment and onboarding costs associated with a 77% annual churn cycle.

2. Increased Billable Capacity: Quantifying the revenue enabled by reducing the 81.5% client refusal rate due to staff shortages.  

3. Increased Client Lifetime Value: Measuring the extended duration of client relationships and the resulting higher volume of high-yield organic referrals (19.5% referral source) that stem from stable, consistent care.

4. Advanced Benchmarking for Search Fund M&A

• Profitability by Payer Source: Collect anonymized data on gross and net margin differences between Private Pay, Long-Term Care (LTC) Insurance, Medicaid Waiver, and Medicare Advantage contracts to benchmark the industry standard cost of MA subsidization.  

• ROI of RPM/Technology: Gather precise data on how many agencies actively track hospital readmission rates using technology, validating the efficacy and cost savings potential for integration (up to 83% readmission reduction).  

• Marketing Channel CPA: Collect anonymized data on marketing spend and patient acquisition volume by channel (e.g., comparing digital marketing CPA against the cost of maintaining effective hospital liaison staff) to benchmark efficiency and guide strategic marketing reallocation.