How LCS Group Purchasing Found Savings for a Portfolio of Communities

Our Approach

Communication, Collaboration, Reporting

When a community onboards with LCS Group Purchasing, they are assigned a dedicated Client Account Manager (CAM). The CAM is a critical resource for the community, proactively identifying opportunities to improve the bottom line through strategic vendor partnerships, actively assisting with vendor management, and connecting communities with products and services from more than 250 vendor partners.

When Healthpeak partnered with LCS for their group purchasing needs, Kristin Coe was assigned as the team’s CAM. Every week one of the Healthpeak team leaders, Elizabeth Ann Fetner, Regional Operations Manager (ROM), meets with Kristin to discuss team member supervision, financial management, quality assurance, strategic planning, facility management, policy implementation, and crisis management. Often these LCS Group Purchasing and Healthpeak weekly calls uncover easy opportunities for the communities to save money. For example, prior to working with LCS, one of the Healthpeak communities partnered with a vendor but not under the LCS Group Purchasing contract. Kristin worked with the vendor to do a contract transfer, saving the community money with a vendor they were already using. Easy savings!

Typically contract transfers are identified during the community’s onboarding process. However, LCS Group Purchasing is constantly looking for new vendor partners to solve community needs, better serve the community’s residents, or find new ways of avoiding unnecessary costs (i.e., energy savings). Part of the collaboration between Healthpeak and LCS includes Kristin sending the team quarterly strategy reports, that are reviewed during a subsequent call. These strategy reports identify challenges or opportunities for the community and if an LCS Group Purchasing program can provide solutions and cost savings.

"Kristin is an advocate and valued partner for our Healthpeak communities. She works hard to identify vendors to support the communities and quickly resolve any vendor challenges. Her work leads to financial savings and while she is advocating on behalf of the community, the community leaders can focus on serving residents, our top priority." – EA Fetner, Regional Operations Manager, HCP

The Challenge

The Healthpeak portfolio includes 13 senior living communities, nine of which are in the state of Florida. These Life Plan Communities offer residents a continuum of care within the same community. They are designed for vibrant residents, offering a wide range of amenities, and living options. 

While each community within Healthpeak’s portfolio has buying power, as the Regional Operations Manager, one of Fetner’s hefty responsibilities includes standardizing processes while finding cost savings without sacrificing quality. All while being mindful of resident satisfaction. 

Healthpeak identified three primary areas of focus when partnering with LCS Group Purchasing:

Back-Up Generators: Health centers are required to have backup generators in the state of Florida to protect residents from natural disasters like hurricanes.*

Technology: Healthpeak wanted to better understand the role technology could play in the increasingly cumbersome task of managing and monitoring community visitors and find the right vendor to implement this technology.

Waste Management: Typically, waste management is the responsibility of city governments who often charge businesses and homeowners a premium for coverage.  The LCS Group Purchasing team was asked to find a program with the same quality at a lower cost.

The Solution

LCS Group Purchasing has over 250 vendor partnerships. When a new vendor is onboarded, CAM’s participate in a vendor-led to become subject matter experts on the vendors’ products and services. With their vast understanding of all LCS Group Purchasing vendor programs, LCS CAMs are able to create customized recommendations for the specific needs and challenges of each community. This was especially true for Healthpeak with the assistance of Kristin Coe, who found savings and solutions to meet each of Heathpeak’s challenges.

Back-Up Generators: COI Energy

COI Energy is a full-service digital energy management platform that eliminates energy waste in buildings and repurposes that waste for good.

Healthcare facilities can save up to 30% on energy expenses, according to COI Energy. According to Fetner, COI Energy “saved the communities a tremendous amount of money.”

This solution worked so well that Healthpeak partnered with local city governments to loan their generators as needed. The city then credits the communities’ electric bill in return.

Technology: Accushield

The contract between HealthPeak communities and LCS Group Purchasing vendor, Accushield, started with a touchscreen sign-in system to replaced paper logbooks. These high-tech kiosks print name badges, provide analytics to community managers, send alerts when guests arrive, and allow for the visitor to leave a quick review of the community upon check out. The system even has a security function for any third-party service provider entering the premises to keep residents, team members, and visitors safe.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, senior living communities struggled with visitor management. Accushield was able to adapt their product for the pandemic, taking temperatures of anyone who entered the communities and adding significant operational value, according to Fetner.

Waste Management: RoadRunner

During one of the quarterly report calls with LCS Group Purchasing, sustainable waste management was identified as a challenge. Their LCS CAM, Kristin Coe, suggested RoadRunner as a possible solution. Kristin explained RoadRunner’s complimentary waste audit where RoadRunner evaluates the community’s spend for waste management and identifies opportunities for savings. In this case, there were significant savings!

The three-year partnership between HealthPeak and LCS Group Purchasing has not only found savings with COI Energy, Accushield, and RoadRunner, but with numerous vendor partners like:

The Utility Refund Agency (URA) - an LCS Group Purchasing vendor who works to reduce utility costs for communities through an extensive and proprietary utility review process.

The Whiz - a commercial robotic vacuum developed by LCS Group Purchasing vendor partner SoftBank Robotics.  Implementation of the Whiz frees up time for their skilled team members to focus on other priorities, including building relationships with residents.

Uniguest – to assist with a communication gap between residents and team members.

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