Elder-Well CEO : Home Care’s Rising Costs Creating New Business for Adult Day Operators

Elder-Well, a non-medical social model for adult day care, has begun offering opportunities for entrepreneurs to franchise its service. The franchising play is yet another example of how adult day models are taking off across the U.S.

The Framingham, Massachusetts-based Elder-Well was founded in 2014 by home health veterans Kara and Ken Harvey. With nearly six years of experience at one location big enough for 14 guests, they decided it was time to expand.

The Harveys have now launched the Elder-Well Franchising System and are hoping they can onboard at least 10 franchisees in 2020.

The startup cost is $43,000 and the total investment estimate ranges from $53,000 to $149,000, according to Elder-Well. The company, however, is offering a discount startup cost of $37,000 for the first five owner-operators.

When the opportunity to expand came about, there were a lot of different potential strategies to explore, CEO Kara Harvey told Home Health Care News. But franchising seemed to be the best fit.

“I had to make the decision on [how we would grow],” Harvey said. “Put a big addition on the home or open another one? My husband and I are former franchisees, so we understood the ability of a franchise system to reach a greater audience instead of slowly adding another corporate-owned unit. We had such a great experience being franchisees that we chose the maybe unconventional way of growing it.”

Moving forward, the Harveys will have their share of competitors in the adult-day franchising world. Among them is Maryland-based Senior Helpers, the home care franchise giant that launched its own Town Square franchise model in 2018.

“I look at the adult day care industry and think that it is kind of like the home care market was 20 years ago,” Senior Helpers CEO Peter Ross said during an HHCN outlook webinar earlier this month. “There is a tremendous opportunity there.”