Welltower CEO Shankh Mitra has praised Integra Health’s skilled nursing operating network.

Weeks after Welltower announced it plans to transition its ProMedica portfolio to a new operator, consumer advocates and mainstream media are questioning the track record of the selected firm.

Integra Health is set to take over nearly 150 facilities in a joint venture with Welltower effective Dec. 19, ProMedica confirmed in early November. Welltower has said that Integra will lease the properties — at a higher rate than ProMedica was paying —  but bring in regional operators for on-site management.

What’s unclear is how much experience Integra has in the skilled nursing sector, and that was the focus of a skeptical article published Tuesday in the Philadelphia Inquirer. ProMedica has been one of Pennsylvania’s largest nursing home operators since taking over for bankrupt HCR ManorCare in 2018. The latest transition will affect 38 nursing homes in the state.

The Inquirer took issue with Integra and its CEO’s absence from federal nursing home ownership databases, despite Welltower claims on a previous earnings call about working with the firm at 21 other sites. The newspaper also reported that Integra CEO David Gefner is just 29, and detailed its unsuccessful efforts to track down more information on his career or his track record in skilled nursing management.

“Welltower’s move comes as nursing home regulators are trying to boost transparency in the increasingly complex ownership structures of nursing homes, which often have the real estate split from the operations, and a mix of related companies providing services, such as staffing,” the newspaper noted.

“The regulatory push is designed to make it easier for nursing home residents and their families to know who is ultimately responsible for care in the facilities, all the way up to the landlords who swap operators when they don’t get the financial results they want.”

Advocates quoted in the report raised concerns about the new operators ability to meet rent demands and pay for high-quality resident care.

Welltower’s communications team did not respond to a request for comment from McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the real estate investment trust told the Inquirer it would not comment further on Integra’s role.

A message left for Gefner at Integra’s main number was not immediately returned. His LinkedIn profile lists him as CEO of Integra since early this year, and as founder and principal of Perigrove, a real estate investment fund with “a vertically integrated development arm, positioning the company to create and capitalize on emerging trends across equity sources like sovereign capital, international financing, next-gen currencies and more.”

Welltower leaders have expressed confidence in Integra’s ability to turn the facilities around, many of them struggling since before the ManorCare bankruptcy and plagued by low occupancy and high agency nurse dependency since COVID hit.

“Integra’s focused asset management and vast network of strong regional providers will allow the new joint venture to build on ProMedica’s positive performance momentum, invest in the communities and hire talent,” Welltower CEO and Chief Investment Officer Shankh Mitra said during an early November earnings call. “We believe the transactions … will benefit all of Welltower’s stakeholders and ensure first-rate resident care continues long into the future.”