Health clinic operator plans HQ expansion, 203 new jobs

Activate Healthcare LLC, an Indianapolis-based workplace health clinic operator, plans to expand its local operations, adding as many as 203 employees over the next nine years, state economic development officials announced Friday morning.

Activate said it will spend $656,080 to lease a 3,400-square-foot office at 9302 N. Meridian St., more than tripling the size of its existing headquarters.

The company operates more than 22 primary health care clinics in the Midwest, including 18 in Indiana that offer care to at least 40,000 patients. The clinics are located within or near workplaces.

Activate was founded in 2010 by Debra Geihlser, the former CEO of a the Atrius/Harvard Vanguard Medical Group in Boston, and Advocate Healthcare in Chicago, and Peter Dunn, the former CEO of Borden Foods Corp. and Steak ’n Shake Restaurant Corp.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. said it offered the company $3.9 million in conditional tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants based on the firm’s job-creation plans.

Activate has about 110 full-time Indiana workers, but its base employment will be considered 84, according to the incentives agreement reached with the IEDC. That means the company will need to have 287 employees by the end of 2023 to fully comply with the contract.

The company has already begun hiring health care, administrative, business-support, marketing, technology and finance employees, it said.

“Indiana is where we started, and Indiana is where we want to grow,” Dunn said in a written statement.

The clinics operated by Activate try to emphasize “proactive, preventative, relationship-based primary care,” the company said, in order to improve patient health and reduce health care costs for their employers.

Employer clinics are on the rise. They typically negotiate directly with lab-testing companies and prescription drug suppliers to get better pricing.

Activate is seriously mulling the next step: striking deals with providers of diagnostic services—colonoscopies, Pap smears—and possibly even consultations with cardiologists, digestive tract specialists, psychiatrists and other specialists.