Mission Main Street Grant

Please vote for us!

May 29, 2015

Category: News

MedFORCE has applied for a Chase Mission Main Street Grant and we need your help to win! Chase gives away a total of $2m in grants to 20 small businesses that are having an impact on the communities they serve. We have submitted our application and now move into phase two.

The next step requires your help! We need a minimum of 250 votes to go before the application review panel. It is very easy – it only requires a Facebook login to vote. Just follow this link and cast your vote for MedFORCE Technologies:https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/49237

While our public profile is rather stark – per the contest’s rules – we did have to answer five essay questions in 200 words or less. We thought this might help you understand more about us, our vision and how this grant can help us better serve communities across the country. The questions and our answers are below.

 

Tell us about your business and what makes it unique. Please provide a general description of your product, customers, competitive landscape and overall performance.

MedFORCE Technologies is a 13 year old, woman-owned software company that helps healthcare organizations be more efficient and productive. We digitize and automate operations to elevate employees’ attention back to where it should be: on the patients.  The healthcare industry is in a historic state of upheaval due to the unprecedented size of our aging population, the ACA, and Medicare reform. Margins are shrinking, paperwork requirements are increasing, and individuals have to fight harder than ever for their own medical care. MedFORCE helps healthcare companies do more with less, adapt quickly to change, and better serve their patient population.

Our products are customizable, scalable and functional across all aspects of operations, from intake to reimbursement to human resources. We have clients across the spectrum from mom and pop companies to large organizations that must collaborate across departments, locations and external partnerships. Our software suite includes electronic filing and content management, business process management, workflow automation, claims management and other productivity tools. MedFORCE helps customers streamline and standardize operations while providing real time visibility that fuels better decision making. With all of our clients, we take the focus off of pushing papers and put it back on the organization’s mission.

 

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur? Describe both your greatest achievements and biggest challenges.

As a single mother to four children, I was inspired to become an entrepreneur in part to create a work environment that would see each employee as an individual, where we could focus on the work to be done and be human at the same time. I strived to create a company that valued loyalty and made employees feel appreciated for their work. I’m proud of the fact that the MedFORCE culture prizes doing the “right thing” for employees and clients over all else.

The other driving entrepreneurial force (and ultimately what led to the founding of MedFORCE) is a constant desire to find the most efficient way of getting things done. The limitations of my employees were rarely inherent in them, but often imposed from an inefficient system.  I was motivated to find a better way to get things done –not to innovate on the margins, but to start from the beginning and build a better system. MedFORCE is structured to allow my employees to focus on human interactions and making nuanced decisions. We use technology to free up time from the rote work to focus on what matters most: our clients and their missions.

 

How is your business involved with the community you serve? Examples include: giving back to the community, sourcing locally and/or contributing to economic development via hiring.

There are two ways MedFORCE helps the communities we serve – through the lives of our employees and through the lives of our customers.

MedFORCE has offices in Suffern, NY and Topeka, KS. In both areas, we offer jobs where there are limited options. Topeka has a higher unemployment rate than all of Kansas. In Suffern, we provide jobs to people who may not be able to commute to Manhattan due to family commitments. In both locations, we bring a decent livelihood closer to home for our employees.

We have an even greater impact on our clients. A large portion of our clients are “mom and pop” companies, who are embedded in and serve their local communities, especially the aging population. The majority of our customers are in the DME/HME space, supplying ailing people with vital equipment such as oxygen, walkers, wheelchairs, and beds.  In an industry marked by consolidation and regulatory requirements that disproportionally affect smaller companies, our ability to help healthcare providers increase efficiencies, save money, expand into new areas, and respond to market changes keeps these small companies open for business and keeps their patients as healthy and lively as possible.

 

What would a $100,000 grant mean to your business and how will you utilize the funds? Please be as specific as possible.

A grant would help us have a stronger impact in our communities by enabling us to actively pursue making nursing homes more operationally efficient. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, “by 2030 there will be about 72.1 million older persons, more than twice their number in 2000.” Nursing homes are a needed, growing, and vital part of society, helping the elderly get the specialized care they need while staying a part of local communities.  Our process management tools make sure nothing falls through the cracks – from medication adherence to documentation needed to receive Medicare reimbursements – ensuring providers spend less time on repetitive, manual processes and more time focused on patient care.

We have a handful of successful nursing home clients and need significant investment to expand. We would use the money to adapt our product to the specific needs of the industry, develop the appropriate awareness of our services, and fund dedicated staff.

$30,000 – software development. Build seamless integrations with other nursing home-specific software and pharmacy applications. Adapt product and build add-ons specifically for nursing home workflow.
$50,000 – Dedicated salesperson base salary
$20,000 – Marketing specifically to senior care communities

 

What are your short-term (1-2 years) and long-term growth plans for the business? How will this grant contribute to your plan?

MedFORCE was built for healthcare, but our platform is intentionally industry agnostic. We have a stronghold in the DME/HME and Specialty Pharmacy fields, and are making confident steps into other areas of healthcare including Home Health, Infusion, Hospitals, and other types of Pharmacies. Our long term growth plan is to diversify our client portfolio throughout all of healthcare, with expertise in process management and a deep knowledge of the individual healthcare fields. Our vision is to have a balanced portfolio that helps us to not only address the needs of individual entities, but become a mission-enabler across entire care networks.

In the short-term, we want to expand our reach in the long term care market in two areas: LTC Pharmacies and LTC Facilities (specifically nursing homes). We have a handful of clients in each area, and have seen the need first hand. While all of healthcare is experiencing rapid change, none more so than the organizations that care for our aging citizens. We help companies adapt quickly, cut waste, and do more with less, which is a perfect for elder care organizations. This grant would accelerate our ability to achieve our goal of helping empower senior care facilities.

 

Please visit this link and cast your vote for MedFORCE today! https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/49237

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