Industry Veterans Launch Four Seasons-Style Post-Acute Pipeline

With more than 50 years of combined senior living experience, industry veterans Brad Haber and Brian Cloch assure that their newly formed post-acute care provider, Innovative Health LLC, will be anything but amateur.

What’s the Rosemont, Illinois-based company’s strategy? To own and operate post-acute health care assets and collaborate with municipalities, hospital systems, accountable care organizations (ACOs) and other providers to transform traditional delivery models, manage and mitigate risk, and create solutions that improve overall quality of care.

For Haber — who has previously worked at GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services, Senior Lifestyle Corporation and Horizon Bay Retirement Communities — it could be a slow and steady process.

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“Our focus is building purpose-built transitional care facilities for between hospital and home,” he tells SHN. “I don’t envision us being 50 properties; we’re going to be strategic about our growth. Right now, on a three-year plan, there are about 10 to 12 deals we want to get done. With that being said, these things could take a long time.”

Launched in June, Innovative Health properties will “look and feel like a Four Seasons, but function like a medical facility,” Haber says.

This high-end transitional care property type has emerged in recent years as a focal point in the senior housing industry, with big-name players like Mainstreet — a Carmel, Indiana-based developer — paving the way with billion-dollar pipelines.

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And while Innovative Health will consider acquisitions, its primary goal is to partner with a developer to do ground-up construction of post-acute properties, which will house between 50 and 80 beds.

Currently, the company “has an immediate need” to get about six facilities built in the Chicagoland area, its target locale, although Haber did not disclose additional details, including the estimated costs for development.

A small group of private investors will fund the developments.

“It’s a short list of half a dozen people that we’ll be raising money from — people we’ve done business with before,” Haber says. “The key is: Everyone we’re talking to is in the industry, so they understand the asset class. We’re not going out to apartment guys. [Our investors] really understand what we’re trying to do and the game plan.”

Experience in the industry, whether it’s that of the investors or of Haber and Cloch, sets Innovative Health apart from other fledgling senior housing companies, they say.

Cloch, specifically, has served in the post-acute industry for more than 30 years. As the founder and former president of the Affordable Assisted Living Coalition, he was the primary architect of the state’s supportive living model, and the former chairman of the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation Nursing Home Administrator licensing board.

He is also a partner in Transitional Care Management, which provides comprehensive consulting and management services in a variety of post-acute settings.

Between Cloch and Haber, the duo has clocked more than 50 years in the industry.

“In contrast to a lot of other people or companies, we’re not fly by night,” Haber says. “We’ve been doing this a long time and we have a vast array of experience that allows us to do this. That’s the one thing I think we want to get across: We know what we’re doing, we’ve been doing it for a while and we have a strategy.”

Written by Emily Study

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