Newport Beach’s Gary Davidson, a former assisted living executive and onetime professional sports entrepreneur, has gotten into long-term healthcare insurance.
Davidson has started Windstone Insurance Agency in Costa Mesa, which sells policies to pay for various types of long-term care, including nursing home and assisted living stays. The policies are sold to individuals, employer groups, small businesses and associations.
Long-term care insurance is rare among seniors,Medicare and Medicare supplement programs are more common.
But Medicare doesn’t pay for what’s called custodial care, when care is provided in nursing homes for a long period of time for people with chronic, long-term illness or disabilities.
Long-term care insurance often is expensive. But advocates have touted it as something that could prevent seniors from depleting or transferring their assets to their children in order to get Medi-Cal coverage for nursing care.
Windstone’s Web site exhorts potential customers to buy the insurance before they become uninsurable or before they actually need it. It cites statistics showing nearly 70% of Americans who are 65 or older are going to need long-term healthcare at some point during their retirement years.
Davidson’s career in senior housing spans five decades.
In 1967, he cofounded General Residential Corp., which developed and managed senior housing. General Residential’s communities were among the first that offered specialized care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia and memory disorders.
Davidson also co-founded ARV Assisted Living Inc. in 1979 and took it public in late 1995. He served as ARV’s president, chief executive and chairman until 1997.
After Davidson stepped down, ARV found itself beating back a pair of takeover attempts, one by Seattle-based Emeritus Corp. and another from Prometheus Assisted Living LLC, part of what’s now Lazard Ltd.
ARV eventually was taken private in 2003 in a $68.1 million deal by Prometheus. ARV now is part of Atria Senior Living Group Inc., which is based in Louisville, Ky.
Today, Davidson is chairman of Windstone Group, a healthcare financing company.
Besides senior housing, Davidson, a lawyer and University of California, Los Angeles, alumnus, also has played a role in startup professional sports.
He was the organizer and first president of the American Basketball Association. The ABA, which lasted from 1967 to 1976, introduced stars such as Julius “Dr. J” Erving and the three-point shot to the National Basketball Association.
Davidson also founded the World Hockey Association and helped organize the World Football League. He served as those leagues’ first presidents and commissioners.
Rehab Play
Forterus Inc., a Huntington Beach company that trades on the low-profile Bulletin Board exchange, said late last month it bought A Better Tomorrow Treatment Center Inc. of Murrieta for $12.8 million.
A Better Tomorrow treats people with drug, alcohol and gambling problems. The company was started in 2004. Forterus said in a release that it expected A Better Tomorrow eventually could buy more facilities to expand programs across California and the country.
Forterus, in its release, said it and its subsidiaries “engage in diverse business activities” including thoroughbred horse racing and breeding and finance, as well as drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
Bits and Pieces:
ChromaDex Corp., an Irvine maker of research tools for dietary supplements and food and beverage industries, said it raised $4.67 million through a private placement Irvine drug developer Cortex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said data from a study of its Ampakine CX717 drug candidate showed it can prevent opiate-induced respiratory depression, a life-threatening condition caused by painkillers The state of venture capital investing, including investment in healthcare, will be examined at VC in the OC, an event presented by the Orange County Venture Group, on Sept. 17 at the Balboa Bay Club & Resort in Newport Beach. Panelists include Alex Dickinson, chief executive of Helixis Inc., a molecular diagnostic testing company in Carlsbad. Helixis has received funding from Domain Associates LLC, which previously had an office in Laguna Niguel, and Okapi Venture Capital LLC of Laguna Beach Children’s Hospital of Orange County said its cancer institute was awarded an “approval with commendation” by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. CHOC, which is in Orange, said its cancer institute is only one of 11 pediatric cancer programs nationwide to receive the designation Alan Puzarne is the new chief operating officer for Nautilus Healthcare Management Group and Greater Newport Physicians in Newport Beach. Puzarne’s background also includes serving as chief executive of Cogent Healthcare Inc., a provider of doctors that practiced exclusively in hospitals that moved from Irvine to Nashville, Tenn., last year … Frozen Egg Bank Inc. in Fountain Valley launched a Web site that includes a registry of potential egg donors.
