About this episode
Howard Berkowitz has spent more than 35 years in transportation, starting as a vice president at the New York City Transit Authority before moving to Florida, where he grew an NEMT company to 50 vehicles and roughly 1,200 trips a day and now consults from Palm Beach County. He walks host Nirav Chheda through five startup mistakes: skipping market research, filing no real business structure, training drivers by video instead of hands on, preventable wheelchair injuries, and going it alone without a consultant who has owned vehicles. He also sits on certification and advisory boards writing NEMT standards.
Key takeaways
- Berkowitz tells prospective owners to sit outside local facilities and watch which competitors show up, whether they run ambulatory, wheelchair or stretcher, and whether area pricing will support another operator.
- He says the two biggest sources of wheelchair passenger injury are not crashes at all. They are sharp turns and sudden braking, and the resulting claims lift insurance costs industry wide.
- A carelessly filed corporation gets pierced in litigation and the owner is held personally liable, so Berkowitz pushes an LLC, or an S corporation rather than a straight INC, after tax advice.
- He wants driver training done hands on rather than by online video, with re-education every two years or random spot checks, and holds master trainer certification in wheelchair and stretcher securement.
- Berkowitz has watched clients buy a stretcher vehicle and then discover stretcher service is not permitted in their local jurisdiction, money spent before anyone checked what the rules allowed.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 3:30 Mistake #1: Not doing your homework
- 6:50 Mistake #2: Failing to have a business structure
- 8:54 Mistake #3: No driver training
- 10:47 Mistake #4: Vehicle accidents
- 12:56 Mistake #5: Not hiring a consultant
- 20:05 Conclusion
