How an ER Nurse Built a Healthcare Legacy

So, I take one of the challenges. Sometimes they, even some painful challenges, sometimes they hurt. But, you know... Treat a Benjamin Cosm is a health care executive, nurse leader, and the CEO of Week Air Home Health Agency.

She helps families access compassionate, high-quality home health care services, while advocating for dignity, support, and empowerment in every stage of care.

We feel so many services since we first started.

We only wanted to be home health, but then I said, "I want to be a one-stop shop outside the hospital." "I want to do everything outside the hospital." So, right now, we provide every service outside of the hospital, a set for hospital. Running a business is very hard.

You have to wear your all your hats. You are in marketing. You are in finance. You are in logistics, operations. You're doing all of these different things.

If there's one piece of advice that you would give to somebody out there, who's considering opening up their own agency,

“or starting their own business, what advice would you give them?”

Well, I would tell you. It spans the goal. Like a super high school. Internet helpers. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.

It's not over. I'll tell how we're...

The living your legacy podcast,

for those who live to leave a legacy. It's extremely, very awesome. Oh, that is sensational. To open, check how the was going to use and call in the boxes. Not on the ground.

You can live your dream. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. I am your host Jason Tyler. And today, I am joined by Ms. Shareda Benjamin Koso. I got the pronunciation on that, right?

Actually, there is. There's a lot of syllables. There's a lot going on there. But Shareda, how are you feeling? I'm feeling great today.

Good. Good. Welcome to the show. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for having me.

Of course. Of course.

“So we are about to go into filming your episode for Women in Power.”

What would you say is the number one thing that you want people to be able to learn from your story? The number one thing that I want people to learn that you could conquer anything if you just put your mind to leave. Mm.

Powerful lesson. Yes. Let's walk it back. Tell me a little bit about who is Shareda? How do we get, how do we get to this place?

How do we get here?

So growing up, I always wanted to work in a medical field.

I wanted to be a physician. But when I went to college, my first year, I was a major in biology. And I spoke to one of my physicians and told them what I really wanted to do. And they were like, do you want to help people? Or do you want to, you know, just become a doctor?

And I was like, well, I want to help people. But I wanted to be obstetrician at that time. And then she said, well, okay, let's make it up. Do you want to work in Pennsylvania? And I said, yes.

“And she said, well, I could tell you, the malpractice insurance is so high that you probably”

won't really make money until you're in your 30s. Oof. I know, right? And then I was like, in my 30s, I was 18. At the time, so you talked about 12 years.

That was like, I'm going to be old, right? Oh, because you know, it is. 30s, not that old, guys. I'm 33. So let's, let's calm down on the 30s old narrative.

And I'm 43. So, but yes, so she said to me, if I want to work in Pennsylvania, I wouldn't make money to. I was about 33. So she was like, I would just tell you to become a nurse. Hmm.

And that's where the journey started. Where I was like, okay, what do I do? How do I become a nurse? You know, life-happened, obstacles happen, right? I got into nursing school when I was about 24.

Hmm. And I graduated at the age of 26. And then I decided, after I went into nursing, that I wanted to be a year nurse. I did not want to do maternity, which is what type of doctor I wanted to be. The obstetrician, I wanted to deliver babies and stuff.

And so I decided that I wanted to be in emergency department. And while in the emergency department, I went on to do tribal nursing. Hmm. Which, I mean. I've heard that that's like the bet.

If you're going to do it, that's like one of the best avenues to do it. It's an avenue ever. If you have no commitments, you go to be a tribal nurse. Go, you get to go to different cities. Well, you know what, this week I'm going to be in LA and then I'm going to be in Boston.

And you get to go to different countries. Because they have your own nurse in next global as well. Oh, I didn't notice. Yes, yes. I had a few friends that did some tribal nursing over in Dubai.

Oh, yeah. I actually, I have funny enough, I had, I don't know if I can say this for the part.

We had a show that we were going to be filming in Dubai in next week. Because of the whole conflict in the region, we had to obviously push our production back. And this was going to be my first time going out to Dubai. And I was getting to direct the show. I was so excited about it.

And then all the stuff went down.

“Why would you, why would you ruin my only opportunity to go to Dubai?”

Well, hopefully. Hopefully. It's still going to happen. It's still going to happen. Yeah, as you're going to make it there.

I just wouldn't go right now. So would you, would it suffice to say that you are like me?

I could never get into an emergency room.

That's not, I'm squeamish. I don't, as soon as I see blood, I'm like, you know what? I got to go. You're not squeamish. No, not at all.

So working in emergency department. Oh, my goodness. And then being a trauma nurse. That's even more blood and gore and never anything like that. I loved, I loved the, I just loved the energy.

That the ER, like the fast pace and, you know, helping people and like saving lives. Like that's me. Like that's what I want to do. So that's like your passion. That is my passion.

And so one day in the ER, I had a patient that he did not want to go home by himself. He didn't want to go to a nurse at home. And he didn't want to stay in the hospital. So he was like older patient. Yes, older patient.

I'm like, what are we going to do? He said, can you come home and be my nurse? I said, you can't afford me, sir. You cannot afford that. Listen, the price is high.

Yes, the price is high. So he was like, well, you know, they do have, you know, agencies down here. And I was in Maryland at the time.

“And so he was like, you know, why don't you open up an agency?”

And that was when that was the first click, right? Of opening up a home health agency. That was the first the first click. The second click was that I had this guy reached out to me on the internet.

Never knew this guy, they in my life.

I don't even know how he got my information. But he was to say he wanted to open up a home health agency. He needed to, two nurses. And he, he sold me the idea. I tried to help him.

It did not work out. It was, it wasn't him. I noticed you said it was the second click. And I was like, there's another click coming. So I don't think this is the one that did it.

This is about the one that did it. But he was like, we got to write policies and stuff. I was a year nurse. How am I writing policies as a year nurse for home health agency? I was trying.

It didn't work. The policies were the, they failed. And then my, at the time, he was my boyfriend. But now my husband, he says, why not us? So I was, I don't know, start a home health agency.

I just wanted to be a nurse. Work my, work my 12 hour shifts. Come home, make money. You know, buy a, buy a bag, get another bag. Like, you know, because I had, you know,

with travel nursing with the amount of money that you make is almost. And then you make it so fast. It's almost like, you know, you just say, you know, I'm, I'm making his money and you will calculate. Okay, I need to work this many shifts this week to get this.

And then you, you buy what you want and then, you know, you pay your bills. But you still have money left over. So it was rewarding the energy. I will nurse.

“And so I thought that that's what I was going to do until I became a nurse practitioner.”

And my goal was to become a nurse practitioner and work in the ER as a nurse practitioner.

Because I always wanted to be the provider.

But just not be a doctor, right? And so that was my goal. So when he said that, I was like, you know. So we went to, we went to our family reunion one year. It was 2015.

And we put in a time capsule. What we wanted to do in the next five years. I put in my time capsule that I wanted to be married. Then I wanted to have a baby. And then I wanted to start my home health agency.

Are we three for three? We are three for three. Three for three. Three for three. I love to hear it.

I love to hear it when people set goals and just knock them out. Soon as the time capsule got buried. The burnization went off in my chest. And I was like, we're starting home health agency. Hmm.

He's like, what do we need as I money? I was a spinder. As do most job. As do most companies. Yes, I was like, we mean money to start the home health agency.

I would tell people have at least a hundred thousand in the bank. Hmm. Oh, because of you got a pay roll. You have to also have a savings for you to get Medicare certified.

Because you have to take care of ten patients per bono.

Hmm. Before you can even get the Medicare certification. Before you can even get some of those contracts with the insurance companies. And everything like that.

“And so, yes, so that's how I got started.”

And now we're on year 10. Hmm. And it's amazing. We've built so many services since we first started. We only wanted to be home health.

But then I said, I want to be a one side shop outside the hospital. I want to do everything outside of the hospital. So right now we provide every service outside of the hospital. So you can set for hospice. Hmm.

So you can be, you know, within your agency. You can have somebody that's a PCP. You can have somebody that is, you know, maybe doing labs. You can have somebody like all of that encompassed under one umbrella. Yes.

That's that is wow. Congratulations.

First of all, because that's amazing.

Thank you. And then second of all, what I wanted to ask is as far as, you know, from the lifestyle of a travel nurse to now going to owning a home health agency.

“What are some of the discrepancies or the differences that you notice in your day to day?”

Have you been able to design it around? I want to just do the thing that I know is my passion. Oh, so no, I haven't designed it around. I was just want to do with my passion. Because of I have where many hates, right?

I'm the CEO. That's, that's one thing in business. You're going to wear a lot of hats. Yes. Yes.

And it's like, I took hats off and they had to put them back on. So, but what I would say is compliance, right? When you're a nurse and you're working for a company, like they talk about compliance, but as long as you know that you're doing what you're supposed to do,

you only have to worry about you, right? You don't really have to think about that upper level of that. And with owning an agency. That's like all you think about. That's all you think about.

Compliance and finances, right? You know, and I wanted to be one of those companies that, because I'm a registered nurse and everything. I wanted to be a company that paid their employees really well. Make sure we had the best insurance.

“Make sure, you know, I just took care of them because I believe that”

if you take care of your employees, they take care of you. Which is, you would think that would be common sense. You would think that. The conversation is not all day common. No, it is not.

Something that I continued to learn day by day. Yes, so, you know, we went through a lot of hiccups, you know, in the process. But I feel like right now I have a really good team, especially in my office.

I have good employees out in the field. And so, I'm at the point right now. I'm happy and I'm just looking for more expansion. And in the areas that we already provide services in, I do want to eventually be that one stop shot outside of the hospital.

So, I have to add hospice on. I've been trying away from it for a while. But what was holding that back? Like, why were you trying away from it? Honestly, it wasn't because of,

I, it wasn't my initial vision. It was somebody else's that was working for me. And I thought that I was going to buy into her vision. So, then she can, you know, have her own hospice company. I think I shy away from it because of I just don't like doing the death.

You know, but people tell me all this time, you know, you will make a great hospice nurse. But when you think about it in this industry, I mean, me being an owner, I don't have to deal with that. But in my mind, I'm still thinking, I'm a nurse.

So, I've got to deal with it, right? So, you know, that's one of the things that I think that I'm showing away from right now. I have the policies already. I just didn't apply. It's ready, but it's ready.

But again, it's one of those things. And I'm glad that you brought that up just about like, a hospice care is you're going to be very well acquainted with the concept. Like, you're the whole thing of hospice is that your client is going to pass on. Yeah.

And it's at the guaranteed, right? And that is no small thing to take on, not just for a business, but for a person, right? So, I just wanted to take this opportunity to give a huge shout out to all the hospice nurses out there. You guys are doing a lot of work. We're amazing.

Y'all are doing incredible work.

You know, my grandfather, when he passed in 2022, he had dementia. And he was in Jamaica.

And eventually he was in the hospice care.

My grandmother on my dad's side, she's in hospice care now as well.

“And it's one of those things that you don't really think about until you have to deal with it.”

Right? And so having somebody that having somebody there in those moments, especially for a family that cares, that is providing good care and that is helping that transition be smooth is like so valuable. Right? So just this is my little bit of encouragement to maybe get you to think about getting in there. But again, that is a decision for you to make.

And as we're kind of winding down here, I wanted to ask if, you know, running a business is hard. Everybody knows, and if, well, I say that, but not everybody knows that. But running a business is very hard. You have to wear your all your hats. You are in marketing. You are in finance. You are in logistics operations. You're doing all of these different things.

If there's one piece of advice that you would give to somebody out there who's considering opening up their own agency

“or starting their own business, what advice would you give them?”

Well, I would tell you to go for it because of one, you could conquer all when you put your mind to it. Just be smart with the moves that you make, have a mentor. That's one of the things that I will tell you that I've received later on in life. Later on in this industry, right, when I first started out, I didn't have anybody to ask questions. I made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes.

And so now I'm in sort of other people because I'm like, I don't want you to make those things as me. And it's funny because even with me going through, you know, going through this business and everything like that. Some of the things that happen, I could tell you, I can make a reality show. And also with the things that happen. Well, you're in a production studio.

So we can make that happen. Yes.

But you know, I always say, you know, why is this always happening to me?

And I, you know, I'm a spiritual person, right? And so I, you know, I talk to God a lot. And I'm like, why does this always happen? And you know what he gives me? He gives me the same answer every time. You don't go through those times, then you can't teach somebody else.

How to go through it. Mm-hmm. If everything is easy, then I can't teach somebody when times are hard. Mm-hmm. So I take one of the challenges.

Sometimes they do some painful challenges, sometimes they hurt. But, you know, I'm like, if I can help others, that's, that's my goal in life. There's a, there's a quote that I really like, your trials will become a beacon for those that are seeking light and seeking enlightenment. Um, I forget who it's from. I do not remember who that quote comes from.

And if somebody out there watching knows where that quote comes from, please comment it somewhere. Um, but again, I say this to business owners all the time because the whole purpose of us putting on these shows and having people come on these shows is to show that. Your, your problems aren't all that unique. Someone has gone through what you're going through and made it out clean on the other side. And you can reach out to that person and ask them for advice.

Yes. And like, so mentorship is like a huge, huge thing that I preach to a lot of people nowadays. I've gone through periods of my life where I've been a mentor, where I've had a mentor.

“Um, and it's just like, it's it. A tale is always time. You go to your elders to seek wisdom. Like that's how human society has function pretty much since we got here.”

Um, now I want to talk a little bit about what is next for Sharia. What do you have on the horizon? What's coming up?

So right now we are starting a CNA training academy and with the training academy right now we're going through our second phase, which is private licensing.

Once we, once we treat private licensing, then we can now charge actual students to come to our program right now. We can charge facilities. So I didn't want to get it started and be, you know, advertised in it and only can charge facilities. And then those, uh, people that are interested in the program or feel like there's love that now, yeah. Um, people my way for me to do this for a long time is funny story is that when I first became a nurse, my nurse manager, her name is Amberi. And she said to me, she's like, you're going to be, you're going to be a teacher, you're going to be an educator and nurse educator and I was like, no, I'm not.

One of the biggest things that they do in home health is educate. I'm starting a CNA training program as you can.

“I want to start, you know, I've been doing nurse and mentors to educate like everything around is educate, but, um, but I want to tell you my end all be all is I'm going to start a urgent care.”

In an urban area, dead accepts medical assistance and that's because of I realized that in our urban areas that there is a lot of, um, a lot of people that don't have access to care because of the hospitals are so.

Are far apart. And so they go to these main hospitals, these trauma hospitals, right, that are for us even trauma patients and they're going for very, um, like minor things.

“Uh, i.e. like, um, you know, if they fractured their toe or something like that, or if they have the ear infection or two fake or anything like that.”

And they're sitting in the waiting rooms for at trauma hospital. Yeah, over 24 hours sometimes, um, some of them leave and, you know, try to self medicate and, you know, you go, if you go on an urgent care, you're in an hour and like less than hour. Quick. What every thing done, X braids, you know, legs, everything is done and they're giving you your prescription. Some, some urgent cares even have a pharmacy on hand.

And so I need one of those, but I have never been to an urgent care to have a pharmacy on hand.

Yeah, I've been to a few. So, but what I say is, is I can give access to care, you know, to the people in that community.

“Once again, helping people, you know, there would be a huge weight. Why it would be a huge weight off of the, um, the hospitals, right?”

Um, it would be a huge weight off the insurance companies because of, I'll take what they're willing to, you know, to give as the cool pay, you know, and then it will give access to care to our people. So, Uh, the sodas might end or be a, um, a lot of people like, well, why not start in now, right? Because you got the money, I want to be a provider in my urgent care. So I am going back to school for my nurse practitioner, you know, after all these years, you have to all these years. I decided to go back and say, I want to be a nurse practitioner and I'm going to open up the urgent care. So, let's say five years from now.

Listen, you spoke it out here on the platform. Now it's out. Yes. Now it's out in the world. Now it's going to happen. Yes. I'm, I'm a big proponent of that, like words have power. So once you've speak it out, now the universe is conspiring to make it happen. Yes. So I'm, I'm excited to see where the, what the future holds for Sharita again. This has been an absolute pleasure. How are you on the show? Of course, of course. Now, guys, if you're still watching at this point in the episode, I want to make sure that you guys check out Sharita's episode of Women Empower, which will be coming out shortly after this episode drops, you'll get a full deep dive on her story.

Growing up in Philly, what makes Sharita Sharita? So make sure you guys check out that episode shortly after this podcast drops. Again, I'm your host, Jason Tyler. This has been another episode of the Living Area Legacy Podcast. And we will catch you guys in the next one.