Senior Home Care $40b Business

(Saturday, September 16, 2006) - When a stroke left Linda DiCarlo's husband, Allen, a quadriplegic last year, she refused to admit him to a nursing home. Instead, she found an alternative.

Synergy HomeCare sprung out of Mesa little more than a year ago with only 25 employees. Nine national franchises and 2,500 employees later, the company says its Sun City office is on track to become its largest. It adds that the center also is one of the age-restricted community's largest employers, behind Sun Health Del E. Webb hospital.

DiCarlo said she wanted her husband at home, near the people who care about him, particularly because his problems are physical, not mental.

"He had all his faculties," DiCarlo said.

Senior home care has grown to a $40 billion-a-year-industry, according to the National Association for Home Care and Hospice.

Synergy's Sun City branch manager, David Cogan, attributes the hot market to families like the DiCarlos, who refuse to place their able-minded loved ones in a hospital bed and call it quits.

"He needs to be around his family, people who can give him the love and attention he needs," Linda DiCarlo said of Allen. Since January, the Glendale man has regained his ability to read, write and perform simple grooming tasks. He practices handwriting and speech each day with his Synergy caregiver. He sits at his own kitchen table while his wife and son look on.

"If we had put him (Allen) in a home he would have deteriorated mentally and not have had the comeback he has had now," Linda DiCarlo said.

Synergy provides caregivers by the hour, whether that is one hour or 24 hours. The service is covered by most insurance companies, making it an affordable option for those with long-term care coverage.

Cogan saw a growing market for home care in the West Valley's dense population of seniors and retirees. He traded in his 2001 red Porsche for start-up cash and approached Synergy chief executive Peter Tourian about opening the Sun City office at 10240 W. Bell Road. Branches in Phoenix, Gilbert and Tucson soon followed.

"When the baby boomers come of age there will be over 77 million seniors in the country. Synergy's success can be duplicated everywhere, that's why I decided to franchise," he said.

Cogan may have downgraded his pleasure cruiser to Toyota's Scion xB, but he's also out of the red and leads one of Synergy's most profitable branches.

Formerly employed by IBM, Cogan became interested in home care after the birth of his now 2-year-old son, Maximillian.

"I needed a caregiver for my second child so that my wife could get some sleep and I could get to work," he said.

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