Starter Kit. Idea 347 of 500. Cluster 17
Physiotherapy at home for the elderly, subscription-priced
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans abroad have parents at home whom they cannot look after from Melbourne. They will pay, and the money stays.
The first step
Find one qualified physiotherapist willing to make home visits in the evenings, and agree a price per visit between you. Ask a family doctor or a ward sister which older patients go home after a fall or an operation, and leave a card with a monthly package: 4 visits and a written note to the family. The first family to buy a month tells you the price works.
- Who pays first
- A child abroad whose parent has come home from hospital with exercises to do, and who wants a professional to supervise them without flying back.
- What leaves today
- Qualified physiotherapists leave for jobs abroad; home visits paid for by Sri Lankans abroad give them a reason and a wage to stay.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Medical Council. Ask whether a physiotherapist making home visits must be registered with them.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which business registration suits a home physiotherapy service.
Check before you spend
The physiotherapist's qualification and registration, insurance for treatment in homes, and the family's consent to the written notes you send.
Find out these three numbers
- What price per visit will the physiotherapist accept?
- What will a family pay for a monthly package?
- How many patients go home after a fall each month?
A comparison from the book
Keep the customer. Appendix
"A sale is worth something once."
A monthly package keeps the patient improving and the income steady, month after month.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.