Alternative Aging

NewCourtland Senior Services Inc. used to be Philadelphia's biggest nursing home operator.

Now it is gearing up to keep people out of the city's 7,500 nursing home beds.

In January, it paid $2.1 million for the former Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute in East Falls, to make it senior housing, and it's aiming to expand to Northeast Philadelphia. This all comes after selling five of its six nursing homes in 2011.

Unlike many similar groups, NewCourtland has money, from the 1995 sale of Presbyterian Hospital to the University of Pennsylvania for $88 million.

That sum - now topping $200 million in the Presbyterian Foundation for Philadelphia - gives NewCourtland unusual flexibility.

"We don't want to make money. We just want to do good," said Gail Kass, NewCourtland's chief executive who also heads the Presbyterian Foundation. For her, that means helping people find alternatives to nursing homes, which would never be able to care for the coming tsunami of elderly, she said. Plus, it's cheaper for people stay at home, where most would prefer to die.

NewCourtland, which includes senior housing and a senior center, had net income of $500,000 on $55 million of revenue last year.

NewCourtland has a good reputation, said Diane Menio, executive director of the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly. "They tend to be out front in a lot of programming, thanks to the Presbyterian Foundation."

NewCourtland's goal is to get into the Northeast as soon as possible, Kass said. It has taken over a territory awarded seven years ago to Public Health Management Corp. under a federal program to provide comprehensive care for the elderly, Kass said.

The program, known as Living Independence for the Elderly, or LIFE in Pennsylvania, serves low-income people 55 and older who are sick enough for a nursing home but want to keep living at home.

Participants must live in an area authorized for the program. Each must make less than $2,199 a month. They typically visit a community center two or three times a week for care, meals, and activities.

PHMC never developed a LIFE program in the Northeast. So NewCourtland wants to jump in.

Nursing home care in a semiprivate room costs $9,550 a month on average in the Philadelphia region, according to Genworth, a long-term care insurer.

By comparison, NewCourtland collects about $6,644 a month for most LIFE participants to stay at home, said Paul Funaro, the group's assistant vice president of utilization management. NewCourtland must cover all of the patient's medical expenses with that money.

NewCourtland has 393 LIFE participants, but Kass sees the potential to serve 1,000 with the Northeast expansion.

Pennsylvania is a leader in LIFE nationally, with more providers than any other state. Its roughly 5,000 LIFE participants rank second to New York's 5,653, according to the National PACE Association.

The effort here is expanding. Pennsylvania intends to select LIFE providers for Montgomery County this fall. NewCourtland has applied.

It plans to open three LIFE centers in the Northeast, along with 500 to 600 housing units, Kass said.

"There is a great need for housing and housing with services for low- and moderate-income elderly in Philadelphia," said Holly Lange, chief executive of the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging, which oversees city services for the elderly.

Menio, the elderly advocate, said she understands the value of housing linked to LIFE but has concerns about the model.

"It starts to look more like an institution, and the regulations just aren't there" for the housing portion, Menio said.

Germantown resident Yvonne Brown, 67, said LIFE has been a huge help as she recovers from heart surgery and a knee replacement.

"They helped me a whole lot, to get through my stress," Brown said.

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