Long-time hospice leader Keith Everett will take the helm as CEO of ProCare Hospice in Nevada as the organization’s previous leader, Dr. Clevis Parker, focuses on his role as chief medical officer.

Parker has occupied both the CEO and CMO seats since 2020, leading the company through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Recently, he decided that separate leaders should occupy those roles. When it came to finding a new chief executive, Everett was at the top of his list, Parker told Hospice News. Everett previously served as CEO of Louisiana’s Hospice of Acadiana, a nonprofit.

ProCare operates multiple business lines, including hospice, a 14-bed inpatient unit, palliative care and one of the largest pediatric programs in its home state. The company’s current average daily census is 260, about 120 of which are pediatric patients.

Hospice News sat down with Everett and Parker to talk about ProCare’s future and how it will adapt to a changing health care environment, including the need to combat fraud that has been prevalent in Nevada and three other states.

How did the two of you first connect and begin discussing this kind of transition?

Parker: I reached out to Keith and said, “Hey, I need a superstar.” I need somebody to take us to the next level. I have gotten us where we need to be, and we’re growing. Now I need somebody who can come in here and make sure that we’re going to be held accountable, and also that the patients get the services they need.

It’s been a good journey ever since. Keith has got the chops to move this organization forward, and he’s got the eye to pay attention to the details to make sure that we’re providing the services that we’re supposed to. So I am super excited. The owners are super excited. It’s primed for continued growth.

We don’t want to be the biggest hospice. That’s never been a goal for me, but we have always strived to be the best quality hospice. That’s what we’re looking for, and now we’re expanding it to the continuum as well. So I’m looking forward to stepping back, focusing on the medical side, and letting somebody else who has that skill set to lead us going forward.

Everett: Dr. Parker called me one day about this great opportunity with ProCare. I’ve been in nonprofits pretty much my whole career, but then I got a chance to go out there and work with him and meet with the owners. I have got to tell you; they’re probably one of the most ethical organizations that I’ve been a part of.

When Dr. Parker reached out and really offered me this opportunity, I absolutely jumped all over it. The opportunity to work with Dr. Parker has been huge.

We’ve had some significant growth the last year and a half. And so now we’re trying to fine tune and put some things in place, get Dr. Parker’s focus back on the medical side of things. I’m coming in and focusing on the day-to-day, operational things. It’s going to really position us to do some great things in the future.

What are ProCare’s most pressing priorities as you look ahead to 2025?

Everett: I’ll say definitely quality. Quality is by far the biggest thing. It’s not about being the biggest or the largest [hospice]; it’s really about the quality care that the patient gets at the end of the day. So we want to ensure that our quality is top notch.

From an operational perspective, it would be that we’re operating efficiently. So we’re putting those efficiencies and programs and things in place to ensure that we are all doing the right thing by way of the patient. For me, I believe in that really inverted-base model of providing care. Patients and families are always first, followed by those that actually support the patients and families, then our back office staff, and then really our leadership.

Dr. Parker, what would you say were your major accomplishments as CEO of ProCare? What are you most proud of?

Parker: It has been a ride, and we have weathered the storm during the pandemic. A lot of hospices struggled, and we did too, but we were able to persevere. That’s probably the biggest win for us.

When I took over, we were at a smaller census, I think in the 180s. So we have grown significantly over the last year and a half. We have had a lot of turnover, a lot of hardships from that standpoint, but we persevered. So I think one of the biggest accomplishments for me really is continued growth in spite of all the adversity and providing the best care that we could.

We also are surviving in an environment that is ultra competitive in one of the four places that has been labeled by Medicare as one where fraud and abuse is rampant. The biggest accomplishment is growth during that time of high turnover, at the same time doing it ethically. We follow the rules, and we have an ownership group that allows us to do so without any interference.

Is the fraud that’s been reported in Nevada affecting ProCare, affecting the market?

Parker: It is wild. It’s so open here. We have group homes, so a lot of our business when I first took over was a lot of patients in facilities. Now we really don’t have a lot of facility patients, because the environment doesn’t allow us to. We have to do things that we’re not willing to do in order to obtain access to those patients.

A lot of the group homes have owned their own hospice or they own multiple hospices. It has absolutely impacted us here, which is why I’m happy that we’ve been able to still grow. We’re known for ethical care, which is a big win.

How do you plan to navigate around those issues and kind of differentiate yourselves from these bad actors in the market?

Everett: We have to continue to just be who we are. We have to worry about the things that we do internally in our organization. We know that there are some bad players out there. There are bad players across all of the United States. We just have to navigate it through, but we have to stay true to who we are. 

We trust our medical team; we trust our nurses; we trust our staff to all do the right things. And so it goes back to ongoing education, understanding who we are as an organization, keeping our culture tight, and believing in who we are.

We have to continue to do what we what we do, look for new and innovative ways to ensure that we can capture a market that maybe is untouched, and then just continue to grow from there.