Integrity makes strategic development moves

Cliff Stepp takes on daily operations after leading Therapy Support Inc.

A change at the top of Integrity Home Care Inc. is part of a three-year plan to position its leaders for long-term goal strategizing, according to Paul Reinert, a co-owner who has transitioned into the chairman role.

On July 13, former Therapy Support Inc. CEO Cliff Stepp officially took over Reinert’s president title, and he shares chief operations officer duties with Pat Gruber, interim COO since January.

“It’s been a couple of years that we’ve been looking for the right person to be able to fit into the puzzle, and we were fortunate that came together in the last four or five months,” Reinert said of the leadership plan developed in 2013. “It will give us more opportunities to think strategically and be involved in the movements that are hopefully going to allow us to be a leader in home care.

“I think it gives us a deeper bench of day-to-day leadership.”

The move comes seven months after a corporate plane crash with the company’s top brass on board.

All passengers – Reinert, CEO Greg Horton, Vice President Bill Perkin and Executive Director of Hospice Amy Ford – survived their six-seat Piper aircraft clipping a cellphone tower Dec. 12 on approach to Springfield’s Downtown Airport.

Reinert doesn’t discount the psychological effects of the crash.

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me focus even more on the fact that I need to have the flexibility to do the things that I really want to do,” Reinert said. “Today is the day; don’t wait for tomorrow.

“That means personally as well as professionally.”

A volunteer member of the home care agency’s board since 2002, Stepp was hired in May to start learning Integrity’s operating procedures before assuming daily responsibilities managing the company’s nine offices providing service to roughly 5,000 customers in 78 counties in Missouri and Kansas on a weekly basis. According to Springfield Business Journal list research, Integrity reported 2014 revenue of $55 million.

“We have an executive structure that oversees operations in all of our offices around the state, and he will be at the top of that pyramid,” Reinert said, adding the company did not perform a national search to fill the position.

“He’s familiar with the industry. From our standpoint, it just felt like the right person at the right time.”

Reinert said the move frees up his time to assist co-owner Horton with developing a strategic vision of industry leadership, particularly toward the company’s involvement in accountable care organizations. Under ACOs, physicians, hospitals, medical equipment companies and physical therapy, home health and hospice services collaborate in managing patient care within a target budget. Organizations, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offer providers incentives for meeting goals.

Early this year, Integrity joined the Central US ACO LLC, one of 123 new groups CMS approved in late 2013.

It covers service areas in Missouri and Arkansas. According to CMS.gov, 405 ACOs participate in its Shared Savings Program, and the ACOs generated more than $383 million in net savings to Medicare in 2013, earning shared savings payments of $315 million.

“We went live with the client part services of it this week, so it will be awhile before we can show the savings,” Perkin said. “It’s so early on we couldn’t point to any results yet.”

Reinert anticipates such organizations will play a role in the future of home-based care.

“People are starting to say the more you can do at home to keep people safe and healthy and away from the health care system, the more we’ll be able to give higher quality of care and lower the overall cost,” Reinert said.

“We’ve been privileged to get to a certain size with our continuum of services and we want to be active in being able to be part of that solution.”

At Therapy Support, co-owner Dave Pavlin stepped into the vacant CEO position.

Web Editor Geoff Pickle contributed to this report.