It’s been two years since Advocate Health Enterprises acquired Senior Helpers. Since then, the home care franchise has entered a new phase.
While this wasn’t the first time Senior Helpers has been on the other end of an acquisition — the company has been sold three times in its history — it was the first time the company was sold to a strategic partner.
“Someone who was actually in health care, [for instance],” Senior Helpers CEO Peter Ross said during a recent Home Health Care News webinar. “With Advocate, we now have the whole health care continuum. This really gave us a chance to do anything from personal care, all the way up into hospital, and then everything in between. That was the synergy goal that we had.”
Advocate Health Enterprises is one of the largest integrated health systems in the U.S.
On its end, Maryland-based Senior Helpers has more than 320 franchised and corporate-owned locations in 43 U.S. states, as well as in Canada and Australia.
Since the acquisition, Senior Helpers have been leaning into its synergy goal through its programs, and with the aid of its corporate-owned locations.
“We have two corporate stores, one in Milwaukee and one in Chicago, that we’ve been leveraging quite a bit,” Ross said. “We have been doing care coordination programs, we have hospital at home. We have staying home safe programs, where we take care of people that are being discharged from the facilities, and help them stay at home, healthy and safely with our LIFE Profile assessment tool.”
For context, Senior Helpers’ Life, Independence, Function, Evaluation (LIFE) Profile assessment tool helps the company create a more tailored care plan. It is based on an examination of a senior’s daily living activities, home safety and medical condition management, among other factors.
Gaining momentum
Ross believes Advocate Health Enterprises and Senior Helpers have begun to hit their stride as together.
“Every time you do any kind of integration, you have a challenge of just getting two organizations together that are not used to being together,” he said. “It started slowly out of the gate, but it really began to get a lot of good momentum through the last six months of 2022. I think this year is going to be awesome.”
In December, Advocate Health Enterprises closed a merger with Atrium Health, a hospital network that operated 40 hospitals, 7 freestanding emergency departments, and more than 30 urgent care centers.
For Senior Helpers, that deal meant more resources.
“What that did for us was open up four new states,” Ross said. “We have a corporate store that’s in Charlotte right down the street from Atrium Health’s biggest hospital. We also have locations in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama that also map very closely to Atrium.”
Senior Helpers has already had several conversations with Atrium Health about integrating home care services into the health system’s continuing health and population health business.
The acquisition has also helped Senior Helpers on the interoperability front.
“The home care industry isn’t using Epic, we’re not using software like that — all of the health systems are using it,” he said. “It has all the claims data. What’s really positive for us is that we now can integrate with what Advocate Health is doing and look at the total cost of care.”
Ultimately, Ross hopes this added advantage will be beneficial when it comes to Senior Helper’ relationships with payers.
This story was updated to reflect Advocate Aurora Enterprises’ rebrand to Advocate Health Enterprises.
Companies featured in this article:
Advocate Aurora Enterprises, Advocate Aurora Health, Senior Helpers
