Selling an outpatient nursing service - Tips for the right timing
Selling your company is usually not an easy decision – especially considering the time you have spent with the company, established daily routines, and employees who have grown dear to you over the years. Change is rarely easy. That is why it is all the more important to start the sales process early.
Selling under time pressure? Not a good idea.
The mental entry usually occurs 5-7 years before the actual sale – often with the thought: „Maybe my employee can take over the company. „ This is a first, by no means bad step, because it leads to actively engaging with the topic and beginning to structure the finances so that a successor gets a clear overview.
But usually a first setback follows here: Leading a nursing service as an employee and running an outpatient care company as a self-employed person are two completely different pairs of shoes. Not everyone is cut out for self-employment. In practice, we often experience that entrepreneurs, after months of training potential successors, ultimately sell their company externally anyway – often including the originally intended internal candidate who backs away in the decisive phase.
This withdrawal is not an isolated case. Especially in times of skilled labor shortages, growing administrative pressure, and a changed attitude toward professional stress, the willingness to take over within the workforce noticeably decreases. What started as a well-intentioned internal succession often ends in a sales decision under time pressure – because the originally planned successor gets „cold feet.“ Thus, retirement draws nearer than the remaining scope of action allows.
Our recommendation therefore: A company sale should be planned early and include multiple offers.
Meaning: the sale of an outpatient nursing service should ideally be planned three to four years in advance. Especially in a sector like care – a true „People’s Business“ – a carefully planned handover is crucial. Not only to secure patient loyalty after the handover, but also to cushion uncertainties among the workforce.
Dress up the bride – and do it systematically
Anyone who wants to successfully sell their care company must not only prepare it in time – but actively enhance its value. The often-cited advice to „dress up the bride“ is gaining increasing economic relevance in the care sector. In practice, this means: Create structures. Because potential buyers – whether strategic partners or investors – look more closely today than ever.
A key value-enhancing lever is digitalization: Care services that invest early in smart software solutions, automate their administrative processes, and thus relieve skilled workers from time-consuming bureaucracy not only increase their efficiency – but also their company value. Digital billing, route planning, automated controlling, and audit-proof documentation are the key to the optimal purchase price.
But beyond technology, what matters is what is lived internally: functioning management levels below ownership, stable staffing ratios, low turnover, and a clearly communicated mission. All of this signals to potential buyers: This company works – even without the founder at the helm.
Sell from a position of strength – not out of necessity
Ideally, a sale occurs in an economically stable situation, with positive earnings and existing development prospects. But this ideal constellation is becoming increasingly rare in practice. The reason: The industry is under pressure. The so-called „nursing service dying“ is on everyone’s lips.
The causes lie on one hand in rising personnel costs – driven by collective bargaining agreements, minimum wage adjustments, and competition for qualified professionals – and on the other hand in reimbursement by payers that often lags behind actual expenses. Especially in the outpatient sector, care rates are often not fully cost-covering – at least not when routes are not precisely planned. In addition, payment terms of up to six weeks from insurers are not uncommon. At the same time, operating expenses – from energy costs to rents to IT infrastructure – are sometimes rising significantly more than the Standard rate. Added to this are massive bureaucratic requirements, permanent legal changes, lengthy approval procedures, and a growing shortage of reliable administrative staff.
In short: Those who want to sell their business must not wait until the numbers turn. The ideal time is – from a business management perspective – always when the company is stable but still capable of development. Because only then can a buyer recognize and evaluate potential. Those who wait too long risk not only a worse price – but also that the business is no longer transferable at all.
Note: This article is part of our healthcare industry series. Contact us at valuation@adamsstrategy.de for M&A advisory in the care sector.