Frontier Management has switched things up with the launch of a new senior living sub-brand — all part of a larger effort to “refresh and reset” for the future, according to COO and Chief Clinical Officer Kandice Alcorn.
The company earlier this month announced the launch of its new Frontier Senior Living moniker ahead of its 24th anniversary in business. Though the new name represents a sub-brand for Frontier, it is also reflective of the period of renewal that Frontier has undergone.
Recent changes include moving the company’s corporate headquarters to its office in Dallas and re-investments in several areas, including going bigger on Montessori-themed programming and the creation of a new healthcare provider network called Frontier Advantage Network.
All the while, Frontier is improving operations and margins, with communities in the central and eastern U.S. showing levels at or above pre-Covid margins and West Coast communities not far behind. And the company is looking ahead to new growth, with a current portfolio of 126 communities in total.
“We’ve had some change over the last year,” Alcorn told Senior Housing News. “We wanted to … refresh and reset so we can keep our focus moving forward.”
Doing things differently
Around the Frontier offices, Alcorn said it’s common to joke that the company has gone “from a family-owned business to a corporation.” Although that’s said in jest, Frontier has significantly grown and evolved in the nearly seven years that she has worked there.
“We’ve really just looked at the company as a whole,” Alcorn said. “We’ve gone from a small operator to a big player in the market.”
In recent years, the company’s path has been one of fast growth and innovation. While the company took a breather on its breakneck speed of growth during the pandemic, it is continuing to evolve with new programs and services as it grows more sophisticated.
Among Frontier’s biggest focuses in the last year has been overhauling its Spark philosophy of care and programing. The program, which is rooted in Montessori-style practices, originally only pertained to memory care. But Alcorn said Frontier’s leaders saw an opportunity to expand it to the company’s other care types and did so this year.
Frontier also now has a dedicated employee to oversee Spark, and the company’s communities can reach different levels of certification with an option to become fully Montessori certified through gerontologist Dr. Cameron Camp.
“We’ve worked with his team as well as our team internally to develop a program internal certification, which has just improved the quality of our programming nicely,” Alcorn said. “It allows residents to run their own community, to remain empowered and have an impact in their day-to-day lives. It’s very helpful and very engaging at all levels.”
Length of stay — the amount of time a resident spends living in a senior living community — is also under the microscope in 2023. During the pandemic, length of stay shortened for operators across the industry, Frontier included.
“Length of stay in and of itself has such an impact on everything,” Alcorn said. “With a longer length of stay, you have a reduction in expenses, a reduction in maintenance expenses, reduction in room turnovers, a reduction in marketing expenses.”
To affect how long residents live in Frontier communities, the company has launched a new healthcare provider network called Frontier Advantage Network, which Alcorn described as being aimed at helping the operator close its “back door” of resident move-outs. Through the program, residents will have access to care professionals who can keep them healthier for longer and in the process more likely to live in a community for longer.
“Our big focus for 2024 is really continuing to drive that length of stay, and what we do day-to-day within the buildings,” Alcorn said.
Another change is that Frontier has altered how it charges residents for care. Previously, the company’s rates were all-inclusive, but Alcorn said that did not always capture the right amount of revenue based on the kind of care the company was providing.
So, the company spent a year closely evaluating its six care levels to determine how long it takes to provide that care, and for how much. Then, the company developed assessment tools to better place residents in the appropriate setting.
“Residents have a very specific individualized assessment and service plan that drives their level of care, which then drives their cost of care,” Alcorn explained.
All of those changes have culminated in a need to “make ourselves almost new in the market again,” Alcorn said, which prompted the launch of Frontier Senior Living.
“Frontier is a senior living company, so we decided to go with Frontier Senior Living to be more defined in who we are and what our focus is,” she added.
‘Interesting year’ ahead
With so many changes already in place, Alcorn said Frontier has a good base of operations going into 2024. She noted that the company will navigate through what she expects to be an “interesting year” for the industry, given its current slate of challenges and opportunities.
“I think 2024 is going to be very location-driven, and that there’s going to be buildings in heavily saturated markets that may not be as successful as buildings in new markets,” Alcorn said. “So we’re looking at the opportunity to go into new markets.”
As in years past, the company is enacting another year of resident rate growth in 2024. But the company is taking a more moderate approach than in previous years, with most residents expected to see increases of 6% to 7%.
“We’ve really tried to look at what is specific to each individual community and not take such a blanket approach,” Alcorn said.
While acquisition will continue to be Frontier’s “number-one” growth strategy, the company’s leaders are preparing for more growth through development in 2024.
“We have a new development pipeline that will either open or break ground in 2024 that’s pretty strong and stronger than what it has been over the last several years,” Alcorn said.
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