Benjamin Breier tapped as Kindred's new CEO
Healthcare giant Kindred is shuffling the top of its deck, elevating No. 2 executive Benjamin A. Breier to chief executive officer and shifting current CEO Paul Diaz to be executive vice chairman of the board of directors.
The announcement Thursday comes just two weeks after the Louisville-based health-care giant confirmed a $720 million deal to buy Gentiva Health Services after a five-month pursuit and significantly grow its reach.
Breier, 43, now its chief operating officer and president, joined Kindred in August 2005 as president of the company's rehabilitation division and became COO four years ago.
"I'm incredibly excited about the opportunity to lead such a dynamic company," he said in an interview with The Courier-Journal.
With the acquisition of Gentiva, the company needed "a clear path forward," Breier said of a transition in the works for some time. His promotion and Diaz's step away from day-to-day operations take effect March 31.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said he'd heard a transition was underway and sees it as a natural step in the company's next chapter.
"Kindred has got a strong bench of talent there. ... Paul and Ben have been side by side for years, so it's a real natural thing" to hand the reins to Breier, he said.
Kindred is projected to become the country's largest provider of long-term, acute-care hospitals and inpatient rehabilitation facilities, along with the home health and hospice services.
The Gentiva purchase, which is expected to be completed early next year, would make Kindred, with annual operating revenues of $7 billion and $1 billion in operating income, the nation's fourth largest health care employer. It will have about 110,000 workers at nearly 3,000 sites in 47 states, caring for more than 1 million patients.
Breier said that with the acquistion, the company's strategy is to create integrated care markets in 25 to 30 cities where the company can offer a range of transitional care hospitals, rehab services, skilled nursing facilities and home health and hospice services.
Assigning nurses to follow individual patients through each stage of their hospitalization or rehab episode is a part of the strategy, along with streamlining services to ensure patients receive quality care cost effectively, Breier said.
Kindred, which was founded in 1985 as Vencor Inc., was renamed in 2001 following its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It operates 97 transitional care hospital and five inpatient rehab hospitals, as well as more than 2,200 sites for rehab services, which includes 104 hospital-based acute rehab units.
With Gentiva's facilities and manpower, the combined home health and hospice businesses within the Kindred at Home division would grow to include 44,500 with more than 126,000 patients daily.
The next major announcement coming from Kindred should center on plans for its Louisville headquarters. Company officials are now talking with Louisville and state leaders about the potential to expand beyond its six-story headquarters complex on the north side of Broadway between Fourth and Fifth streets downtown, Breier said.
The company purchased nearly all the property at Theater Square across from The Brown hotel in the last year, and within a few weeks, he said, they expect to release more detail about their plans.
In the meantime, the complex could become offices, he said, to 500 additional human resources, IT, and administrative jobs, some from Gentiva and the balance from Kindred's growth expected in the next few years.
Fischer said that while the headquarters plans are still subject to discussion and are not a "done deal," he optimistic that the parties can reach terms on an incentives package soon.
"We appreciate what they're doing big time, Fischer said.
Reporter Grace Schneider can be reached at 502-582-4082. Follow her on Twitter @gesinfk.
Benjamin A. Breier
Experience: Chief operating officer of Premier Practice Management Inc., 1997; became CEO in June 1998. Senior vice president and vice president of operations for Concentra Inc. Joined Kindred in 2005 as president of rehabilitation, then in March 2008, named hospital division president. In August 2010, named COO. In May 2012, additional duties added as company president with COO designation.
Age: 43
Education: B.S. in economics from The Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania; MBA and MHA from University of Miama in Florida.
Family: Wife and three daughters.