Why Build A New Nursing Home Company In An Unsteady Industry?

Posted on: December 19, 2014

Fifteen years ago, when CareOne and its many affiliated companies were founded, a large portion of the nursing home industry was operating under the protection laws of bankruptcy. It is entirely appropriate for you to wonder, based on these circumstances, why I would choose to begin building a new nursing home company. In fact, I had already built a successful nursing home company, Multicare, a New York Stock Exchange listed company with 175 nursing home facilities.  Multicare was sold in 1997. At the time of the sale, the New York Times wrote that Multicare was a jewel in the nursing home business in the quality of care and the quality of management.

So why would I decide to go back into the nursing home business after I had already successfully exited the business and the buyer of my company, as well as many other competitors, were operating under bankruptcy? The simple answer is I wanted to build a different kind of nursing home company. My vision was to penetrate suburban markets on the eastern coast of the United States.  I wanted to build a company that was not comprised of the same 30 or 40 vintage facilities that populate our industry. The idea was to build or acquire and renovate facilities that operate in geographic clusters. In some instances, facilities that operate on campuses offering multiple levels of care – nursing care, assisted living, memory care, home care.  More importantly, the company had to operate in a manner that had both the flexibility and durability to endure change. The company needed to be able to evolve within the ever-changing health care system and make these changes by constantly upping our game. And that’s exactly what we are doing today.

Here we are now 15 years later, CareOne is dominant and first in class in all of the markets we operate in. The company is still standing, which is no small accomplishment given the tremendous internal and external challenges we faced over the past 15 years. In truth, we are more than just standing. We are thriving, stronger than ever and the future is something we can embrace with confidence.