There’s goods news and bad news when it comes to locating startup capital for a new healthcare company. For example, if you own a healthcare vendor business, such as a temporary nurse staffing agency or a medical transcription service, PRN Funding can help fund your company by purchasing your accounts receivable. Selling your invoices to a factoring firm is just one way you can bypass commercial bank’s stricter lending restrictions.

Businessweek.com offers some more ideas in their recent articles, Busting the ‘Free Money’ Myth and Little Lenders: Small Banks May be Your Best Bet.

Unfortunately, there is a common misconception that entrepreneurs can tap government grants and interest-free loans to use for their startup companies. The article, Busting the ‘Free Money’ Myth, explains that although the U.S. government gives grants to help with small businesses, most of that money goes to local governments, state agencies and nonprofits–not individuals. The articles also explains that loans coming from the Small Business Administration (SBA) often carry a higher interest rate that a loan from a conventional bank because of the risk involved with a startup company.

Moreover, the article, Little Lenders, shares some interesting statistics supporting the fact that smaller community banks generally are willing to lend money to small businesses as compared to the larger commercial banks. Quoting the president and chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America Camden R. Fine, “Community banks focus primarily on small businesses, mom-and-pop operations and consumers because the footprint [of these banks] is a single town or small cluster of towns, they know their customers really well.” Even with their loyalty to the smaller companies, many community banks are still tightening their lending standards because of the credit crunch.

So the bads news is it’s harder to gain access to capital via conventional means. The good news is that there are some alternative way of financing startups. Accounts receivable factoring and payroll funding are just two alternate ways to create a positive business cash flow.

What are some other ways you can think of to help finance your new business?

There are a growing number of people who are finding viable and attractive business paths in franchsing, according to the cover story, Franchise Enterprise, in the February edition of The Costco Connection. In fact, according to the International Franchising Association (IFA), there are more than 760,000 U.S. businesses that generate $1.5 trillion annually and supply one out of seven jobs. With impressive numbers like these, it’s hard for a smart entrepreneur to pass up the idea of franchising a medical staffing company or a medical transcription service.

Aside from sharing the success and failure stories from business owners who have decided to franchise, the article shares some of the advantages and drawbacks of opening a franchise.

Of the many cited advantages, the Small Business Administration (SBA) points out that “franchising is an attractive choice for many entrepreneurs because it eliminates the painstaking work of starting a business from scratch. When you buy a franchise, your new venture comes with systems in place to help run it, including marketing, accounting, and business training and coaching on how to retain employees.”

However, franchising also has some not so tempting drawbacks. The biggest disadvantage–Although you are the owner, you don’t control your business. Business owners have to follow the processes and procedures without variation and contracts usually last for a whopping 10 years or longer.

So the bottom line is whether you are looking for a way to grow your nurse staffing agency or increase the profits of your medical transcription service, franchising involves an element of risk, so make sure to do your homework.

Check out the article here: Franchise Enterprise.

According to members at the Edward Lowe Foundation, a Michigan non-profit organization dedicated to helping second stage entrepreneurs, one of the biggest reasons why business owners cannot transition into the next level of operations is because they don’t want to delegate job responsibilities.

In our line of work, PRN Funding comes across a number of startup health care staffing companies, growing medical transcription services and medical coding companies trying to get ahead in their respective industries who open their doors with 1-3 people.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this when you are just starting out, but if you ever want to make it to the next level of operations, the Edward Lowe Foundation says it’s mandatory to hire additional people and delegate the responsibilities.

To learn more, visit BusinessWeek.com and read: Are You Losing Control of Your Business?

For those of you entrepreneurs who are local to the Cleveland, Ohio area, there is a series of courses offerdc by Tri-C’s Corporate College that targets small business owners. 

For only $39, the Public Relations for Entrepreneurs course will deliver 12 Insider Tips to Attract Free Publicity for Businesses.  Although designed for any business entpreneur, we thought it might be of particular interest to our temporary nurse staffing readers, medical transcription service owners and outsourced medical coding companies. 

According to an e-advertisement, Public Relations for Entpreneurs will teach small business owners how to:

• Quickly, successfully and inexpensively promote your business.
• Discover how to get media coverage.
• Learn to write press releases that get you noticed
• Generate buzz within your profession and among your peers

Click here to learn more about the Cleveland Corporate College Small Business Course.

Scott Wintrip from StaffingU delivered another great tip sheet in last week’s Net-Temps e-Newsletter.  This topic included tips to help business owners attract new business, which we thought would be interested to our current clients as well as readers who own their own medical staffing business, medical transcription service or medical coding company. 

• Work less
• Always ask for what you really want
• Automate, delegate, or integrate
• Pay with your business card
• Continually add value to your services
• Make yourself a resource for referrals
• Maintain a strong support system
• Install upgrades often
• Have a vision and clear goals
• Fully express your sense of humor

Click here to read the entire tip list: 10 Tips for Attracting New Business.

Scott Shane, author of The Illusions of Entrepreneurship, shared 10 tips on BusinessWeek.com for starting a new business.  We wanted to share some of the information with our business owner readers, including nurse staffing entrepreneurs, medical transcription service owners and medical coding business owners.

Pick the right industry. Entrepreneurs “tend to choose industries in which they are most likely to fail,” Shane writes. Many never look outside the industry they used to work in, even if they don’t have any competitive advantage over their former employer. Pick a sector with a growing market where you can differentiate yourself from the competition.

Evaluate your ideas. Research shows “42% of new-business founders decide to start a company before they have identified a business idea,” Shane writes, and 28% never consider more than one idea. Think through lots of opportunities and pick the one most likely to succeed.

Start with a team. More than half of new businesses are started by individuals, “even though the performance of new businesses founded by teams is better,” writes Shane. Going in alone lowers your chances of success.

Sell to businesses, not consumers. “Most startups sell products or services to individual consumers, even though 90% of the fastest growing private companies in this country sell to businesses,” according to Shane. Founding a business-to-business company will raise your odds.

Launch full-time. Even though there’s lots of evidence that full-time ventures are more likely to survive, profit, and grow, Shane says, most entrepreneurs launch their companies part-time.

Click here to read the rest of the tips: A Better Way to Start a Business.  Click here to the BusinessWeek article on Scott Shane’s book, The Illusions of Entrepreneurship.

Karen E. Klein of Businessweek.com wrote a small article giving some advice on what to do when a client files Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Given the recent events with Ensemble Chimes Group (Chimes) declaring bankruptcy, we thought it might be useful to our readers.

Some key advice from the article is here:

“You should not do any more work for the larger corporation until you’ve got a payment for the outstanding amount and a new contract directly with the big firm, says Donald King, a bankruptcy attorney with Odin, Feldman, Pittleman in Fairfax, Va. You should also ask for administrative priority in the subsidiary’s bankruptcy case, meaning your claim will get higher priority for repayment.”

Click here to read the entire article: When a Client Files for Bankruptcy.

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to speak with Pat Bemis, president of the National Nurses in Business Association (NNBA), and she gave us the inside scoop on the new location for the 2008 19th Annual Education Conference.

Previously set for Orlando, FL, the conference has been moved to Daytona Beach, FL.  Contrary to previous years, the NNBA has negotiated discounted room rates in two side-by-side hotels, The Plaza Resort and Spa and The Plaza Ocean Club Hotel.  (The conference will take place in the Plaza Ocean Club Hotel.)  Although the conference is scheduled for November 8-9, 2008, group rates apply from November 5-10.

If you are a nurse entrepreneur or if you have ever thought about starting your own nurse staffing agency, we encourage you to attend the NNBA meeting in November.  Not only will PRN Funding be in attendance, our company’s president, Phil Cohen has been asked to speak to attendees about the financing options available to nurse staffing startup businesses.

Imagine a world where the owner of a nurse staffing agency could offer his/her receivables to a dozen different invoice factoring companies at one time and then he/she gets to sit back and watch a bidding war unravel as factors compete to win the nurse staffing firm’s receivables.  In the end, the business owner walks away with the advance rate and factoring fees that meet his/her expectations.

That is precisely the scenario that could be played out on The Receivables Exchange (TRE), a new accounts receiveable marketplace set to launch in the first quarter of 2008.  Founded by Justin Brownhill and Nic Perkin, TRE’s goal is to increase competition among factoring companies to make it easier and cheaper for growing companies to raise working capital.

“It’s almost like Ebay–post you invoice and let everyone bid on it,” Larry Cheng, a partner with Fidelity Ventures, who has invested heavily in TRE’s operations, said in an article that ran in the January edition of Inc. Magazine.

In theory, TRE would work best for companies looking to “spot factor” receivables.  TRE proposes that business owners stop wasting time and energy shopping factoring firms when it only has one aged receivable and instead turn to the bidding marketplace to receive cash fast.

Of course not all of the kinks are worked out so early in the game, and business owners and factors alike have their reservations about TRE.  Check out the entire article: Short on cash? There’s a new way to sell receivables: on an exchange, and let us know what you think about it!

On Thursday, January 17 at 1:00pm ET, 12:00pm CT, 11:00am MT, AHIMA is giving a webinar entitled, “HIPAA Security: What Everyone Should Know.”

Intended for privacy officers, security officers, HIM directors, IT personnel and compliance officers, the 90-minute presentation will cover the following topics:

Structure of HIPAA rule

Overview of HIPAA security standards

Required vs. addressable specification

Organizational and documentation requirements

Administrative, physical and technical safegaurds

Policies and procedures

Compliance program elements

Auditing

The cost is $179 for AHIMA members ($229 for non-members), and each attendee receives two AHIMA CEUs.

Leading the webinar are Angela Dihn, MHA, RHIA, manager of professional practice resource at AHIMA, and Tom Walsh, CISSP, president of Tom Walsh Consulting, LLC.

Click here to register for the webinar conference, HIPAA Security:What Everyone Should Know.