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Founder and President | Elite Home Rehab and Healthcare and Elite Therapy
Melissa Dicke has grown Elite Home Rehab into one of the largest private home health care agencies in Indiana. She employs 125 staff members across five outpatient clinics in Carmel, Kokomo, Lafayette and Logansport, serving more than 500 patients each day. Dicke came to the rescue in Kokomo two years ago when Community Hospital had to close its rehab facility, leaving doctors without a good local option for their patients. Dicke filled the void by launching Elite Therapy, rehired half the staff and broke ground on a brand-new, state-of-the-art rehab center that just opened after two years of construction. “She truly cares about all our patients’ well-being and has been known to go to treat patients herself in very rural areas where few staff are available,” said Stephanie Goddard, Elite’s marketing director.
Getting here: Dicke was working for an outpatient physical therapy clinic and a home health agency in California before she moved to Indiana in 2013 to run a rehabilitation department for a nationwide home health agency. After a few years, she felt that Indianapolis had a large void for home health services, and she opened her first Elite location in 2016.
First job: Lifeguard
Givebacks: Past board member, Humane Society of Hamilton County; member, Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Howard County Chamber of Commerce and Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care
Influential moment: Treating one of Elite’s first patients, a relatively young stroke victim who hadn’t walked in a year. After about four weeks of therapy, he and Dicke walked down the hallway in his assisted-living facility. “He was so excited and proud and told everyone in the facility about it,” she said. Numerous people had tried to get him to walk but had not been successful. “I knew right then why I created this company.”
Advice: “Whatever you choose to do, make sure it is something that you love to do. All the time and effort that you will need to put in will be that much easier if you genuinely love what you are doing, and it will clearly show through.”•
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