Annual Earnings Climb 33% for Nursing Home Operator

Care Enterprises, a fast-growing Laguna Hills-based nursing facility operator, Friday posted a 33% increase in earnings and a 48% boost in revenues for the year ended Dec. 31. Fourth-quarter earnings increased by 49%.

Care officials attributed the earnings increase to the company’s strategy of adding money-making services such as comprehensive rehabilitation programs to its nursing care facilities.

The company, which operates 98 skilled- and intermediate-care nursing facilities with 10,376 beds in California and Utah, plans to add about 2,000 beds in 1985, according to Derwin Williams, senior vice president and chief financial officer.

Net earnings for the calendar fourth quarter, increased to $878,000 from $590,000 for the same period a year ago. Fourth-quarter revenues increased 43% to $46.5 million, up from the $32.5 million reported in prior year.

For the year, Care Enterprises posted a 33% increase in net earnings to $3.2 million, up from the $2.4 million for fiscal 1983, which included a $1.5-million one-time charge against operating income.

Revenues for the year rose 48% to $151.1 million, up from the $102.3 million reported in fiscal 1983.

He said the company is working on marketing programs to attract more private-pay patients. About 20% of Care’s revenue comes from private patients and another 20% from Medicare patients. Medicare is the federally-funded medical insurance program for people over 65. The remaining 60% of its patients are supported by Medicaid, the federal goverment’s health insurance program for the indigent.)

The company also operates 10 home health care operations and three pharmacies in California and Utah. Care Enterprises’ current expansion plans, especially the previously announced $25-million acquisition of Americare Corp., will make Care Enterprises the nation’s fifth largest investor-owned operator of nursing facilities, according to executive vice president Boyd Hendrickson.