When Bruce Sturm joined Erickson Retirement Communities three years ago, he was tasked to do something that was never done before.
Sturm, 58, was hired to help create and oversee the nation?s first Medicare-approved health plan for retirement community members.
“It was a significant challenge, investing a lot of time and resources and putting the system in place,” Sturm, the senior vice president of the Erickson Advantage health plan, said from his Catonsville office. “Other retirement communities don?t want to invest all of that time and money.”
Baltimore-based Erickson Retirement Communities, with three locations in Maryland and 20 across the country, serves more than 20,000 community members. More than 2,100 members use the Erickson Advantage plan.
Sturm and Erickson Retirement Communities combined housing and health services for seniors, helping community members while spending less than Medicare typically spends to care for people of the same age and health.
The savings are achieved by reducing the amount of time community members spend in hospitals, Sturm said.
“As Americans age and they get to a point where their home and health care become a significant issue, they need to find an environment that?s secure,” Sturm said.
For its innovative approach to providing health care services, Erickson Advantage was recently named the 2007 Top Leadership Team in Healthcare for health plans by HealthLeaders Media, a Tennessee-based publisher of senior-level health care information.
Sturm joined Erickson and brought with him more than 20 years of experience in the medical and health insurance industry, previously working for MedStar Health and Elder Health Inc.
“[Sturm] is very committed to expanding and coming up with new ways for health care to work for seniors,” said Rick Grindrod, president of development enterprises for Erickson Retirement Communities. “He?s got a tremendous amount of knowledge, wisdom and experience in the field, and he was a perfect person for the job.”
