Welltower Strikes Senior Healthcare Deal with CareMore

The initial focus will be to integrate CareMore's clinical programs and onsite care models at Welltower communities in Los Angeles and Orange County in collaboration with operating partners Belmont Village and SRG Senior Living.

Welltower Chairman and CEO Thomas J. DeRosa

TOLEDO, OH—Healthcare REIT Welltower Inc. has entered into what it terms is a “strategic collaboration” with California-based senior healthcare provider CaareMore Health to improve care, outcomes and to reduce the total cost of care for the senior populations living in select Welltower communities.

The two companies report the initial focus of the collaboration will be to integrate CareMore’s clinical programs and onsite care models at Welltower communities in Los Angeles and Orange County in collaboration with Welltower operating partners Belmont Village and SRG Senior Living.

Following the implementation of these programs, CareMore and Toledo-based Welltower will look to expand this partnership more broadly into other regional and national markets, they say.

“Welltower is proud and excited to announce this first of its kind collaboration with CareMore Health. We firmly believe that this innovative partnership will demonstrate the benefits of managing the complex health care needs of seniors in lower cost settings with the goal of achieving improved outcomes,” says Thomas J. DeRosa, Welltower’s Chairman and CEO. “The joining of Welltower’s best-in-class operator platform and the outstanding care-based navigational tools and programs offered by CareMore Health, will benefit not only our resident senior population, but will offer a true model of value-based health care.”

The partnership will introduce residents in the Welltower facilities to Medicare Advantage institutional special needs plans (I-SNP) offered through CareMore’s partnering health plans. CareMore clinicians deliver and manage care for patients enrolled in these special needs plans.

“We are pleased to bring CareMore’s high-touch integrated model to Welltower communities to deliver world-class on-site care to their residents,” says CareMore president Sachin H. Jain, MD, MBA. “By deploying our interdisciplinary care teams of physicians, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists into these communities we aim to continue our mission that includes making high-quality, compassionate health care easy to access. We look forward to this collaboration with Welltower that will serve as a model for effective care.”

Residents enrolled in the CareMore program will have access to CareMore’s mobile interdisciplinary team of nurses, doctors, behavioral health specialists, pharmacists, case managers and clinical coordinators to implement personalized care plans. The CareMore team, along with participating assisted-living wellness staff, will work closely together with the goal to increase access to care, shorten and reduce avoidable hospital stays, reduce polypharmacy, ensure successful transitions across settings, and enable residents to safely age in place.

Benefits of this collaboration will be actualized through the creation of operational efficiencies that leverage each organization’s expertise, the companies state. Through this collaboration, the firms anticipate improved health and wellness of the resident population, while prioritizing the growing national interest in leveraging value-based payment methodologies that emphasize improved care at a lower cost.

In an unrelated matter, Welltower announced on Friday it was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the second consecutive year and to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index for the fourth consecutive year.

Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices are considered among the most important global indicators of sustainability leadership, evaluating companies on environmental, social and governance factors relevant to their industry. The World Index represents the top 10% of companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index in terms of their sustainability performance.