Broad Reach Healthcare Happenings

by Rick Gamache, FACHCA

BILL BOGDANOVICH STARTED HIS CAREER IN NURSING HOMES as a dishwasher and worked his way through training to become an administrator in 1987, which is the same year he joined ACHCA. Today, Bill is President and CEO of Broad Reach Healthcare, a continuum of services for older adults located in North Chatham on Cape Cod.

The flagship of Broad Reach Healthcare is Liberty Commons, an innovative skilled nursing community with a capacity to care for 132 older adults. Other features within the Broad Reach portfolio are a 40-apartment assisted living residence, an out-patient rehabilitation clinic, a comprehensive hospice program, and more.

As a longtime College member, Bill is well known within our profession and has a much-deserved reputation as a forward thinker and compassionate leader. In 2018, several local and regional media outlets featured the story of a bold recruitment and retention strategy Bill created to attract staff members in the notoriously difficult labor market of Cape Cod. Bill began purchasing residential properties located within geo- graphic proximity to Liberty Commons and offered workforce-affordable housing at below-market rents to his employees.

The population on Cape Cod swells during the summer, as vacationers flock to beaches, and restaurants and retailers compete for seasonal hires. The cost of housing also grows exponentially at that time. After Labor Day, the population on the Cape decreases, but the workforce shrinks, too. By offering rents for his employees that are not driven by whatever the market will bear, Bill's organization has been able to avoid some of the ebb and flow of turnover that is affecting everyone.

That’s not to say that Broad Reach Healthcare is immune to the impact of the unprecedented labor shortage within long-term care across the U.S., but retention rates for staff at Liberty Commons have consistently averaged fifty percentage points better than national and state aver- ages.

Providing more affordable housing for staff is only one component of Bill’s vision to create a workforce-friendly culture. For example, Broad Reach has long offered its employees emergency loans when they encounter a financial hardship. The “Helping Hands” fund exists to assist a staff member with an unexpected expense or a larger- than-expected utility bill that can be paid back through payroll deductions, interest- free.

Currently, about 10% of the company’s employees live in Broad Reach's workforce housing. They are not required to come up with an up-front first month/last month down payment or a security deposit. They are, however, required to remain employed by Broad Reach to continue receiving premium rent-structure and other benefits.  Broad Reach even allows these employee- tenants to defer their rent when expenses like high winter utility bills spike.

The actions of their president and CEO clearly communicate to Broad Reach’s staff that they work in an organization where they matter, and where leadership cares about them. In the current labor market, demonstrating care for employees is essential to survive. Bill Bogdanovich has been ahead of that curve for years.

After all this time in the profession, I asked Bill what keeps him going. He takes pride in seeing the accomplishments of people he has hired and mentored, he states. But I think it’s more. In my short con- versation with him I could sense that he loves staying one step ahead of the competition. He was comparing his competitor’s PBJ data to his own when I called. Earlier, he was meeting with a group of new employees to welcome them to Broad Reach Healthcare and share the organization’s unique culture.



Bill stays balanced, never allowing him- self to get too high or too low, which has become more difficult than ever before. He says the nursing home environment, (the over-regulated, under-funded, short-staffed- while-dealing-with-a-pandemic side) is not forgiving. To succeed, he believes one must accept that it’s an assignment of responsibility that just doesn’t exist the same way in other business sectors or professions, and that you must create a sense of personal agency over it, controlling what you can, rolling with what you cannot. Even at its most challenging, Bill believes a leader in aging services can be successful, provided they are with the right organization.

In the middle of Cape Cod, Bill Bogdanovich has created such a place.

Richard Gamache, MS, FACHCA, is CEO of Aldersbridge Communities in RI, and teaches Long Term Care Administration at RI College. He is also an item writer for the NAB exam and the assistant editor of New England Administrator.