by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
Last June, local health diagnostic company HealthScreen America had high hopes for its future. Executive brothers Christopher and Fred Fey planned to expand into major cities like Atlanta, Boston, Houston and Miami, but investment capital dried up. In Jacksonville, they had built a home base to handle multiple locations, employing about 90 people. When investors turned conservative and the additional locations didn’t materialize, the cutbacks came.
“We put in place an infrastructure to manage more operations than we had built,” said Chris Fey, chairman and CEO of HealthScreen America. “So over the last three quarters, we have done some right-sizing. As you find out where your opportunities for efficiencies, you adjust your business accordingly.”
HealthScreen America cut back to about 40 employees, which puts it in line with its current operational requirements. Despite the setback, Fey still has high hopes for his business that saw over 12,000 customers in the last two years.
“We’re still a little ahead of our time,” he said, likening his company to modern necessities like the fax machine and the cell phone; each started slowly but are now part of the social fabric. “I think America has refocused in the last two or three quarters. A lot of our plans were linked to anticipated gains in capital. A lot of capital has dried up over the last seven quarters.”
To cope with the soft economy, Fey said HealthScreen America has adopted a revised, three-prong business plan less dependent on up-front capital investments.
“First of all, we want to develop joint ventures with hospital systems,” he said. “We were going to raise the capital and build our own centers. Now we’re looking at integrating our systems in existing facilities.”
Fey explained that he would also like to see HealthScreen America break into smaller markets.
“We’ll take existing diagnostic facilities in a market like Gainesville and license the HealthScreen America brand to them,” he said.
Similar to a franchise agreement, Fey said the turn-key arrangement would benefit both the independent locations and HealthScreen America by offering brand recognition and proprietary systems to the individual location and greater coverage for HealthScreen America.
The third aspect of the revised business plan actually revisit’s Fey’s original intention: raise capital and expand into other cities, although Fey puts that initiative on the back burner for now.
“We’re waiting for a rebound in the market,” he said.
Last year’s plans of expanding into Europe haven’t disappeared nor have notions of going public with the company. It’s just a matter of time, says Fey.
“We’re refocusing our priorities on what is the easiest way to expand our brand,” he said. “We just had to adjust our business model in relation to the environment.”