A Conversation With ... Phil Melugin

What we thought was that after winning it, it would probably be a good idea to let somebody else take a run at it. There are a lot of other great companies out there. Ironically enough, we did end up growing by 30 percent last year. We grew by about $6 million in revenue – from a $20 million company to a $26 million company last year.

Tell us about your company.

When we talked last year, we talked about the Columbia location (which opened in 2005) and this year, we added a Branson location. So we’re in Columbia, Branson, Kansas City, Joplin and Springfield. I have two partners, Greg Horton and Paul Reinert. Greg serves as our CEO, and Paul serves as our chief financial officer. We have probably 1,450 to 1,500 employees. We have approximately 150 employees who are part of our leadership team, serving in the offices. Then, well more than 300 nurses and therapists and the caregivers round out the rest of that number.

What services does Integrity provide?

We do overnight care, 24-hour care … personal care services, homemaker-chore types of services, which might include cooking, cleaning, running errands (and) transportation, all the way to skilled nursing and advanced therapy services.

What brought about the 30 percent growth in 2006?

We just continue to gain market share throughout all of our service area. Last year, we started providing consumer-directed care services, (which) allows the consumer, or the client, to direct their own care. We saw quite a bit of growth in that area of our company. We saw a lot of growth in pediatric care in our office in Columbia. We showed significant growth in our state contract services, and the state contract services in southwest Missouri probably showed the most significant growth throughout the whole company. Those are Medicaid services.

In 2006, we talked about telephony, a phone-based time-clock system for employees that was designed to improve billing accuracy. What new technology are you implementing now?

We’re just now introducing a new product … a wireless telemonitoring product ... through Philips Medical Systems. We’ll be introducing it first in southwest Missouri and then throughout all of our offices throughout the state. It allows the nurses with our agency to better monitor the care of their patients. For instance, if a client requires daily monitoring of their vitals, it allows the nurses to monitor them without actually having to be in the home. It also allows us to provide the physicians’ offices with critical data so they can make decisions accordingly.

All of your offices are in Missouri now. Have you thought about growing in other states?

Yes, we have, and that is something that we will entertain on a more formal basis, probably, in 2008. We are just considering contiguous states to Missouri at this point.

What’s your role at Integrity?

My focus is the operations of the company. I do a lot of traveling (and) conduct several meetings a month with different leadership/management personnel. I provide quite a bit of input for the strategic planning for the company.

Tell us about your family and what you like to do for fun.

I have a wonderful wife of 18 years who helped me start the business. We would have never made it had it not been for my wife, Kimberly. I have three children – my son, Heath, is a junior at Kickapoo and is 17; my daughter, Megan, is a freshman at Kickapoo, and she’s 15; and my daughter, Miriam, is 11 and is a fifth-grader at The Summit – who, in Dad’s opinion, are excellent soccer players. We like to bird-hunt together. We enjoy fishing, and we are looking forward to our first family cruise in June.