Senior Care Licensing Can Come with Challenges: FirstLight Home Care Eases the Process with Best-in-Class Support

FirstLight Home Care, a leading provider of non-medical personal and companion home care, takes great pride in its work and signature Culture of Care. Its Culture of Care isn’t just for its customers, but also for its franchisees and its caregivers. 

This level of franchisee support extends to the brand’s licensing process. No FirstLight Home Care franchise can operate without a license if the state requires one. Currently, 34 states require some sort of licensing to operate a home care business. The license acquisition process can vary greatly from state to state in both complexity and time it takes to obtain the license. It can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months, assuming you submit everything correctly from the start. For this reason, the brand’s leadership team does everything it can to make sure the license acquisition process goes as smoothly as possible. Franchisees are ultimately responsible for obtaining the proper licensure, but the brand still does what it can and provides much-appreciated guidance, including having a dedicated person in place that works with franchisees specifically on licensing.

“FirstLight has a really good structure in place to help franchisees in the early stages of business and growth, and when it comes to licensing, that support is at an even greater level,” said Mark Hamid, President & Owner at FirstLight Home Care of North Tampa & East Pasco. “The support FirstLight offers from a business development standpoint is phenomenal.” 

The state of Florida, for example, has a “more rigorous” licensing process that usually takes between six to nine months, Hamid said. The FirstLight team has several people in place, including Business Development Directors (BDDs).  

“They will guide you around state-specific guidelines,” Hamid said. “Each state is different in terms of licensing. Some have very high expectations and guidelines.” 

New FirstLight franchisee Shabana Azmi, who will open her Calabasas, California franchise in December, started the licensing process in August and obtained her franchise’s license in September. She worked with the BDD assigned to her, which helped tremendously. 

“FirstLight helped us implement best practices by sharing information related to policies and procedures,” Azmi said. “In California, if you submit all of your paperwork perfectly, it usually takes around three to four months to get your license. But because of FirstLight’s help, it went faster.

“FirstLight is one of the top franchises in the senior care industry. They offer the best support system, especially in training, hiring and technology. Now that I have the license for my franchise, I can move forward with my franchise and offer services to my community.” 

The startup costs for a FirstLight Home Care franchise range from $110,881 to $167,876. The franchise fee is $48,000. To learn more about franchising with FirstLight Home Care, visit https://www.firstlightfranchise.com/.