Securing Optimal Contract Terms
Solutions: Energy Procurement, Energy Management
Helia Healthcare operates 13 skilled nursing facilities and 4 premier rehabilitation centers in Illinois and Missouri. Helia Healthcare’s focus is providing resources and expertise to enable a safe return to your home in the community or providing a lifelong home with their facility. In order to provide the best resources, Helia Healthcare needed to streamline their energy use and find cost savings for future terms. Environ Energy stepped in and simplified their energy management, while finding $480k in energy cost savings over their 59-month contract term.
Opportunity
With multiple accounts across various suppliers, Helia Healthcare’s energy management was tedious and time consuming. Environ streamlined their accounts through a single supplier and one electricity bill.
Challenges
Helia Healthcare was in need of energy procurement services for their 11 facilities to assist in energy management. They had multiple suppliers across numerous utility accounts, several expired contracts, and varying rates across all invoices. They were paying close to $470K in annual supply costs. While decreasing costs was the initial focus, further challenges arose when Helia Healthcare acquired additional facilities which came with their own existing supply contracts. They faced a common occurrence during the transition of ownership in which the existing supply contract is dropped, leaving them exposed to the higher variable market rate. Environ was quick to identify the situation and present a solution.
Solution
Environ acquired pricing from their pool of vetted suppliers for ideal pricing and contract terms to fit the needs of Helia Healthcare’s operations and the 11 existing facilities. To better align with the goals and needs of Helia Healthcare, Environ presented a new contract which would move Helia Healthcare away from market-based pricing with staggered start dates to a new contract with consolidated billing, streamlining all of the accounts to one supplier with one end date. Additionally, as accounts from newly-acquired facilities were added, Environ helped Helia Healthcare avoid having their dropped accounts revert to variable market rates by putting a gap contract in place.
A Collaborative Partnership
Helia Healthcare came in contact with Environ through their Illinois Health Care Association (IHCA) membership and became an Environ customer in 2019. Since then, Envrion was able to secure $480K in energy supply cost savings over a 59-month contract term, streamline their energy management for ease, and assist in an unexpected transition issue with the newly acquired facilities’ previous supplier. Impressed with Environ’s services, Helia Healthcare referred Environ to fellow health care facilities and continues to seek additional assistance in energy management strategies and supply cost savings.
“Environ took a huge burden of energy management off our shoulders by simplifying the process on our behalf. With our group spanning multiple communities in two states, under various energy contracts with different start dates and different billing processes, we needed Environ’s expertise to make this area work for us. They came in and handled the process from the first step to last. This not only streamlined the process, making the back-end work easier for us, but also found us the significant energy cost savings of $97K a year! Plus, Environ continues to step in when we have questions or needs. It’s great to be able to worry less about our energy management, so we can focus on the well-being of our guests and residents.”
— Steve Miller, President, Helia Healthcare
