EmpowerMe Wellness is buying ONR Therapy in a deal that will position the St. Louis-based company as among the country’s largest senior living therapy providers.
The combined company will offer therapy, diagnostic, pharmacy, and care coordination services in approximately 1,100 clinics in senior living communities across 36 states, with a headcount totaling 2,800 team members.
EmpowerMe Wellness announced the deal Monday. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
EmpowerMe plans to keep in place ONR’s current management teams, corporate office and employees. Under the acquisition, ONR will continue operating under its brand name in many of the communities it currently serves. But over time, programs in certain communities will be rebranded as EmpowerMe Wellness.
While they are similar in size, both companies together have scale and capabilities that they would otherwise lack individually. EmpowerMe, for example, will bring to the acquisition health and wellness services that include diagnostic lab testing, pharmacy, and care coordination services. And ONR is bringing to the deal a presence in skilled nursing facilities and to regions and services where EmpowerMe does not yet have a foothold, but would like to expand.
With ONR under its umbrella, EmpowerMe will “have the scale to serve an operator who has a community virtually anywhere in the country,” said CEO Josh Stevens.
The acquisition is not only aimed at scaling up, but also at better-positioning the company to take advantage of the ongoing shift to value-based care in senior living. Stevens believes that the ability of senior living providers to better manage resident wellbeing will be critical for payers as value-based care continues to expand in the years to come.
“Our goal … is to focus on healthcare outcomes and use technology in a way that’s different from what’s being used right now so that, in the long-term, we can help senior housing operators take advantage of the value-based healthcare ecosystem that’s developing inside of our industry,” Stevens told Senior Housing News.
Stevens, who is also the co-founder and former president of Cedarhurst Senior Living, said another long-term goal is to provide services to older adults even before they move into senior housing. The company is working on “proprietary tech” that, on top of its integrated clinical capability, will in the future allow it to reach seniors while they are still living at home.
Ultimately, he sees senior living communities as just one stop along an older adult’s aging journey.
“What we want to help do is really lift up the senior housing operators that are interested in that opportunity, and provide them the scaffolding and the infrastructure to pursue that,” he added.
EmpowerMe has since its launch in 2017 focused on bringing more advanced and integrated care services into senior living communities. The company has grown quickly in recent times, with $100 million in funds raised in 2021 alone.
The company’s recent growth spurt has included the acquisition of Tampa, Florida-based Salus Physical Therapy, which was one of the state’s largest providers of outpatient therapy to senior living communities. EmpowerMe also this year opened the doors on a new diagnostics laboratory located next to its corporate headquarters in the St. Louis suburb of Brentwood.
Companies featured in this article:
