2016 Business Class: Phoenix Home Care Inc. (Top Honors)

Now providing home health care services in 15 communities across four states, Phoenix Home Care Inc. isn’t slowing down. Executives expect to open a Denver office in the fourth quarter, this on the heels of three-year revenue growth of 87 percent.

Financial performance
In an industry with a roughly 7 percent profit margin as standard, Phoenix Home Care Inc. is operating above its peers. The home health care provider last year grew both profits and revenue by 33 percent on its way to becoming a $50.2 million company.

But entering this next phase, profitability is a shrinking statistic.

“Right now, the constriction is the severe cuts to Medicare reimbursements,” says Phoenix Home Care President Phil Melugin. “The rates are being driven down. Profits are being restricted by the Affordable Care Act. The costs that have been added by that piece of legislation has been hundreds of thousands of dollars for my organization.”

Innovation
The financial restrictions are causing company officials to look hard at cutting costs. Melugin says a key solution is software produced by two local companies: HealthMedX and HealthcareFirst.

“Those two companies will be the only outside vendors we do business with to capture all the documentation for all these employees,” he says.

Phoenix is in the final implementation stage with HealthcareFirst to consolidate multiple platforms for recording services provided, time spent in homes, mileage and all forms of compensation, for example. The system will enable caregivers to electronically input information before they leave patients’ homes.

“That will save our company about $400,000 a year by consolidating and streamlining the back office work to produce a weekly payroll for the 2,700-plus employees,” Melugin says.

Community involvement
Philanthropic initiatives focus on youth to senior awareness programs through corporate contributions and employee volunteerism.

In 2015, Phoenix raised $5,000 in the March of Babies, for which Business Development Vice President Gwen Beebe served as chairwoman. The company also supports the Alzheimer’s Association, Lost and Found Grief Center and American Heart Association.

“We evaluate needs as they come up,” Melugin says. “Over the next few years, we will be developing a philanthropy plan.”

The idea of a goal-driven giving program was prompted by last year’s entry into hospice care in Kansas. Melugin says the firm currently is establishing a continuum of care with hospice in three markets.

“That goes hand in hand with volunteerism and philanthropy,” Melugin says. “It will be an opportunity to take our level of philanthropy from reactionary to a proactive mindset.”