With 7 Communities And Counting, Senior Living Newcomer Nucare Plans Next Stage Of Growth

New senior living operator NuCare Senior Living only got started late last year. But the company has a growing platform of communities, and overall ambitions to grow with ownership groups currently seeking new operating partners.

The Wisconsin-based company is led by CEO Joel Moyer, who previously had positions with Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD), Encore Senior Living and the Wisconsin Assisted Living Association before founding the company late last year.

NuCare currently manages seven communities in Wisconsin, and the company’s communities are located in the Midwest.

The company is also actively working with new investors to add more communities later this year, and Moyer added that NuCare also is seeking future management agreements that would allow it to hold ownership in some communities.

“We have partners who are looking for an alternative, and we look at each opportunity individually. We want to ensure that we’re aligned with the ownership group’s goals to have a successful, long-term relationship,” Moyer said.

The company is seeking higher-acuity communities, in particular memory care, to meet the rising demand for needs-based senior living services.

In 2024, a significant number of senior living residents are living with cognitive decline, including outside of typical memory care settings. That is forcing operators to evolve their early-stage dementia care in assisted living and later in memory care settings, along with integrating new technologies including fall monitoring and detection.

“Length of stay has shortened, acuity has heightened, and overall services provided for memory loss have expanded into the spectrum of services from home care, independent living to regular assisted living, and there’s a point where they need more service or help,” Moyer said.

Early detection of dementia and cognitive decline, along with remote monitoring of patients, will help improve care over time, Moyer believes. With added technology to support operations, The use of new technology will help operators make staffers more efficient, and in the process help prevent resident rates from ballooning in tandem with the cost of care, Moyer said.

“You have to figure out how to become more efficient,” Moyer said.

The focus on memory care is also personal for Moyer, whose mother helped pioneer early memory care communities in Wisconsin during the 1980s. Today, she is a resident in a NuCare community.

For the remainder of the year, Moyer said NuCare would continue to work with its investment partners on potential new management agreements for multiple communities later in 2024. Looking ahead to 2025, Moyer said NuCare has identified opportunities in Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia that the company may explore.

In the meantime, Moyer said the rest of the year would consist of building out internal systems and a data platform to support operations in preparation for future growth.

“We don’t see ourselves as a national provider, and we will pick states where we’re comfortable with regulations and have resources available,” Moyer said. “We believe senior living is a regional business.”

The post With 7 Communities and Counting, Senior Living Newcomer NuCare Plans Next Stage of Growth appeared first on Senior Housing News.