Why TheKey Has Shifted Its Focus To Organic Growth After A Flurry Of Acquisitions

TheKey has been one of the most active acquirers in the home care space, but now, it is shifting focus and leaning into other growth drivers.

“For us, that’s kind of our big focus now: How do we really double down on organic growth?” Melissa Reyes, president of the west division at TheKey, said during a recent conversation with Home Health Care News. The conversation took place last month at HHCN’s FUTURE conference in Nashville.

Delray, Florida-based TheKey provides home care, memory care and specialized care services in more than 100 markets throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia.

In addition to organic growth, Reyes also discussed how TheKey is working to differentiate itself from its competitors, and why the company is doubling down on private pay.

HHCN: What are TheKey’s biggest wins and 2024 highlights so far? How have they driven the business forward?

Reyes: We’re just coming out of a period of time where we saw a lot of growth, and now really getting to a place where we are starting to see things stabilized, and operations are sound.

A lot of times, when you have a period of large acquisitions, it gets noisy and it gets hard to understand. Are we growing organically?

Being able to see the fruits of the labor really come to fruition throughout the beginning of this year has been exciting.

TheKey has never shied away from M&A growth, but where does organic growth fit into the company’s strategy?

For us, that’s kind of our big focus now. We want to double down on organic growth.

Our sales force and boots on the ground has always been a top priority for us. We invest heavily in that group, and we will continue to do so. We also invest heavily in sales enablement to make sure that we’re creating products that actually bring value to our referral partners, and to our clients. We’ll continue to focus heavily in those areas. That’s where we see our strongest organic growth coming from.

Is TheKey still seeing a lot of worthy acquisitions targets in the home care space?

It has been a little quiet, but we’re seeing the beginning signs of it starting to open up a little bit.

As we’re kind of getting to a place where we’ve really stabilized operations after all of the acquisitions, I would imagine as the market begins to shift, we’ll start to look a little more seriously in that space at the end of this year or beginning of next year.

How is TheKey working to differentiate itself in a crowded home care landscape?

I would say a couple of different things stand out for us. First, we have a scientific advisory board that really kind of helps drive the value and the service that we’re bringing to our clients. We’re focused on person-centered care, but really developing a program that really kind of wraps our arms around clients. It’s a program that integrates. How are we exercising the brain? How are we socializing? What’s the nutrition, and what’s the sleep pattern of our clients?

It brings all of those elements together to really create that person-centered approach. We call it our balanced care method. With every new client, we identify which of the five balanced care method pillars we need to focus on for them to really create that holistic approach to care in the home.

What’s TheKey’s current payer mix? How important is achieving payer diversity to the company?

We’re 90% private pay. We don’t really look to change that necessarily. The other 10% — we do have some VA in there, as well as some long-term care. We’ll continue to focus specifically on private pay.

Has the private pay landscape become more challenging, in terms of pricing?

We’re very transparent with our clients, up front, about how we are structured and our pricing model. We do an evaluation every year on the client’s anniversary date with us, and we assess and implement rate increases as needed.

We focus heavily, not around the price, but on what’s the value that we’re providing for the services that the client is acquiring from us. We feel strongly that, with the value we’re bringing to our clients and our referral partners, we’re priced right in the market. We’ll continue to focus on that value, and the education that we’re bringing to our clients.

How important are partnerships to TheKey right now, and what types of companies are you looking to connect with?

We’re really doubling down with the wealth advisors, trust attorneys as well as GCMs. We’re recognizing that as kind of an area that’s more untouched.

What are TheKey’s strategic priorities for the rest of 2024?

For the rest of 2024, we’re really focused on just continuing to drive organic growth. We’ve got a lot of strategic priorities around how we really think about retention differently — retention of clients, retention of caregivers. How do we get strategic and innovative in that space? We’ll continue to head down that road together.