# The 12-Month Home Care Agency Sale Preparation Checklist > The agencies that achieve premium valuations are almost always the ones that began preparing 12 months or more before going to market. Here is the month-by-month checklist for getting your home care, home health, or hospice agency sale-ready. Source: https://www.hendonpartners.com/insights/12-month-home-care-sale-preparation-checklist Author: Neli Gertner Published: 2026-05-01 Category: Sale Preparation Tags: sale-preparation, exit-planning, checklist, home-care, EBITDA ---The agencies that achieve premium valuations in home-based care M&A are almost always the ones that began preparing 12 months or more before going to market. The agencies that go to market unprepared, in contrast, typically achieve 15 to 30 percent lower outcomes than they otherwise would — driven by diligence-driven discounts, weaker buyer competition, and reduced negotiation leverage. This checklist is the month-by-month playbook for a structured 12-month preparation. It applies across non-medical home care, Medicare-certified home health, hospice, pediatric PDN, and behavioral health agencies, with segment-specific notes where relevant. --- ## Why Preparation Matters Buyers — especially sophisticated PE platforms and strategic acquirers — diligence aggressively. Anything they find that wasn't clean, organized, or pre-disclosed becomes a discount, a structural change in the deal (more earnout, more escrow, more rep and warranty exposure), or in worst cases a reason to walk. Preparation does three things: 1. **Maximizes EBITDA defensibility** — clean financials, justified add-backs, normalized working capital 2. **Eliminates avoidable diligence flags** — compliance cleanup, contract organization, employee classification, documentation 3. **Builds the strategic story** — growth narrative, market positioning, management depth, integration ease Each of these directly affects multiple, certainty of close, and final structure. --- ## Months 12 to 10: Financial Foundation ### Get a Sell-Side Quality of Earnings (QoE) Engage a transaction-experienced accounting firm to produce a sell-side QoE on the trailing twelve months and prior two years. The QoE will: - Normalize EBITDA with defensible add-backs - Identify and resolve accounting issues before a buyer finds them - Build a credible financial narrative - Significantly accelerate buyer-side diligence later Cost: typically $25,000 to $75,000. Value: multiples of that in pricing leverage. ### Clean Up the Books Move from cash to accrual basis if you haven't already. Reconcile balance sheet accounts. Document accounting policies. Resolve open items, lingering reconciliation issues, and historical accounting choices that need explanation. ### Build a Real Monthly Reporting Package If you don't already produce monthly P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, and operational KPI reports — start now. Buyers will expect at least 12 months of monthly reporting in diligence. Building it from a clean baseline is materially better than constructing it retroactively. ### Identify and Document Add-Backs Owner compensation above market rate, personal expenses, one-time items, discontinued service lines, COVID-era anomalies, related-party rent — every legitimate add-back needs supporting documentation. Add-backs that are legitimate but undocumented are add-backs that get challenged in diligence. --- ## Months 10 to 9: Operational and Compliance Cleanup ### Compliance Audit Engage healthcare compliance counsel or a compliance consultant to do a pre-process compliance review covering: - Survey/inspection history and any open plans of correction - Billing compliance (Medicare, Medicaid, MCO claims) - HIPAA and privacy - EVV compliance (where applicable) - OIG screening and exclusion list checks - Worker classification (1099 vs W-2) - Caregiver and clinician credentialing files Address findings now, while you have time. A buyer's diligence finding the same issues is materially worse than your own pre-process documentation showing remediation. ### Contract Inventory and Organization Build a complete contract inventory: - Payer contracts (Medicare, Medicaid MCOs, commercial, VA) - Referral source agreements - Vendor contracts (EMR, scheduling, payroll, equipment) - Employee agreements (especially key clinical/management) - Real estate leases - Partnerships, joint ventures, or affiliations Identify change-of-control provisions in each. Anything that requires consent, notification, or termination in a sale needs to be flagged early. ### Document Operating Procedures Buyers want to see operations that can be transferred. Document: - Intake and admission processes - Care planning and clinical oversight - Scheduling - Billing and collections - Recruiting and onboarding - Quality and compliance processes Documentation doesn't need to be polished consultant output. It does need to demonstrate that operations don't exist only in the founder's head. --- ## Months 9 to 7: Management and Operational Depth ### Build or Document Management Depth The single biggest valuation discount for owner-operator agencies is "key person risk." Buyers ask: if the owner left, what would happen? If you have built a real management team, document their roles, capabilities, and what they own. If you haven't, this is the time to start. Hiring or promoting an Administrator, Director of Nursing, Director of Operations, or VP of Sales — even at the cost of short-term EBITDA — pays back in valuation. ### Reduce Owner Operational Dependency Begin transferring operational functions away from the owner: - Sales and BD activities to a VP of Sales or BD team - Clinical oversight to a DON or DCS - Operations to an Administrator or COO - Financial close and reporting to a CFO or controller Buyers underwrite the post-close operating model. The less the owner is in the day-to-day, the more attractive the asset. ### Address Key Employee Retention Identify your 5 to 15 most critical employees. Consider: - Bonus structures or stay agreements aligned with sale timing - Documented compensation that won't surprise buyers - Non-compete and confidentiality coverage where appropriate - Career path and engagement that supports retention through transition Buyers will negotiate retention packages with key employees post-LOI. Going in with strong employee relationships and documented retention strategy strengthens your position. --- ## Months 7 to 5: Strategic Positioning ### Build the Growth Narrative Buyers pay multiples on forward EBITDA. The growth story matters. Document: - Recent and current organic growth trends (census, hours, admissions, revenue) - New service lines or geographies in development - Sales pipeline and recent wins - Referral source expansion strategy - Operational capacity for continued growth The narrative should be defensible — not just optimistic projections, but a documented case for continued growth. ### Diversify Concentration Risks Concentration risks are deal killers or deep discounts. Address: - Single-payer concentration (especially single-MCO contracts in Medicaid) - Single-referral-source concentration (especially over 30 percent from one source) - Geographic concentration in declining markets - Single-customer concentration in private duty or staffing models Diversification doesn't happen overnight, but a documented effort to diversify, plus measurable progress, materially improves diligence outcomes. ### Document Quality and Outcomes For Medicare-certified home health and hospice especially, pull together: - Star ratings history - Survey results - HHCAHPS / CAHPS Hospice scores - Quality measure performance - Clinical outcome metrics where available Quality metrics are valuation drivers. Documented strength supports premium pricing. --- ## Months 5 to 3: Pre-Marketing Readiness ### Engage Your Advisory Team Three to six months before going to market is the right time to engage your full advisory team: - M&A advisor / investment banker - Transaction counsel (M&A and healthcare regulatory) - Tax advisor (including estate and personal planning) - QoE accountant (if not already engaged) Each plays a specific role and they need time to understand your business before the process begins. ### Begin Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) Development The CIM is the document that introduces your business to buyers. Building it well takes weeks. Components: - Executive summary and investment highlights - Business overview and history - Service line descriptions - Operational metrics - Financial summary and projections - Market and growth opportunity - Management team - Transaction process and timeline ### Data Room Preparation Begin populating the virtual data room buyers will access in diligence. Categories include: - Financial (statements, tax returns, QoE, projections) - Operational (KPIs, contracts, policies) - Legal (corporate documents, litigation, compliance) - HR (org chart, key employees, comp data) - Regulatory (licenses, surveys, plans of correction) - IT and systems A well-organized data room signals professionalism and accelerates diligence. ### Confidentiality Planning Decide who internally needs to know about the process and when. Build NDA infrastructure for both internal communication and buyer-side outreach. --- ## Months 3 to 1: Process Launch Preparation ### Buyer List Development Work with your advisor to build the targeted buyer list. The list should include: - Strategic acquirers with clear strategic fit - PE-backed platforms with active acquisition mandates in your segment and geography - Selective sponsors for whom your agency could be a platform investment The list should be curated to 15–40 names typically, not blasted to 200. ### Final Financial and Operational Polish Last cleanup of: - Trailing twelve months EBITDA, with all add-backs documented - Current month operational KPIs - Recent quality and compliance documentation - Management presentation materials ### Process Timing Confirm that timing makes sense. Avoid launching a process in late November or December. Avoid launching during a known regulatory transition (e.g., final rule implementation in your space). Plan for a process that runs 6 to 9 months end to end. --- ## Month 0: Launch The first month of the formal process typically involves: - CIM distribution to the buyer list under NDA - Initial buyer questions and management calls - Preliminary indications of interest (IOIs) - Selection of buyers invited to second round By the time you launch, every component of preparation should be complete. The process itself is execution; the value was largely created in preparation. --- ## What Preparation Is Worth A well-prepared agency in a competitive process typically achieves: - 15 to 30 percent higher headline valuation - Cleaner deal structure (more cash at close, less earnout exposure) - Faster close (3 to 5 months from LOI vs. 6 to 9) - Lower escrow and reps and warranties exposure - Better post-close transition outcomes The 12 months of preparation work — and the modest direct cost of advisors and QoE — is one of the highest-return investments any agency owner makes. --- ## Strategic Implications The agencies that achieve premium outcomes are the ones that ran a 12-month preparation playbook. The agencies that didn't generally don't. If you are 12 to 24 months from a possible sale and would like to understand what preparation looks like for your specific agency, [contact us for a confidential conversation](/contact-us). --- ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How long should I prepare to sell my home care agency? The agencies that achieve the strongest outcomes typically begin meaningful sale preparation 12 to 18 months before going to market. Pre-process work on financials, compliance, operations, and management depth directly translates to higher valuations and smoother execution. ### Can I sell my home care agency without preparation? Yes, but at a meaningful discount. Agencies that go to market unprepared typically achieve 15 to 30 percent lower outcomes than agencies of similar fundamentals that have done 12 months of preparation work, due to diligence-driven discounts, weaker buyer competition, and less leverage in negotiation. ### What is the most important thing to do before selling a home care agency? Get a quality of earnings (QoE) analysis or a sell-side accounting clean-up done. Reliable, defensible financials are the foundation of every other element of a sale process — valuation, buyer credibility, diligence efficiency, and negotiation leverage all depend on it. ### Should I clean up my financials before talking to a buyer? Yes. The cost of pre-process financial cleanup (typically $25,000 to $75,000 for QoE work) is small relative to the valuation impact of clean financials in a competitive process — typically a multiple of the cleanup cost in additional enterprise value.