AngMar Medical Holdings Enters Hospice Market Via Acquisition

Mansfield, Texas-based home health provider AngMar Medical Holdings Inc., has entered the hospice space with the acquisition of its first agency, located in Wichita, Kan. The location will operate under AngMar’s new brand, Angels Care Hospice. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

The name of the acquired hospice in Wichita is confidential per an agreement between the organization and AngMar.

AngMar, a privately-held company owned by Mark and Angie Eddins, operates home health locations in nine states under the banner of its Angels Care Home Health brand.

“For many years now — and especially within the past 12 to 18 months — we have been really focusing on creating disease management programs geared towards patients who suffer from chronic illness, especially patients who come under the umbrella of chronic care management, as defined by [the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services],” AngMar’s Chief Operations Officer Tony Miller told Hospice News. “We have put a great deal of effort into trying to make ourselves attractive to referral sources for that chronic diagnosed patient. These often have been patients that we have had to discharge off of our home health services, and also patients whose illnesses had progressed to the point where we just couldn’t support them through the [Medicare] home health benefit.”

The hospice M&A market is continuing to heat up despite record-high multiples in the space, largely driven by demographic tailwinds and availability of capital.

The second quarter of 2019 saw 14 hospice transactions. Eight major hospice acquisitions took place during the first quarter of 2019, up from seven transactions during Q1 2018 as well as Q4 2018, which also saw seven transactions, according to a report from Mertz Taggart.

Among the most significant transactions in the second quarter occurred in May with the purchase of Texas-based Resolutions Hospice by Cornerstone Healthcare Inc., a subsidiary of The Pennant (NASDAQ: PNTG), for an undisclosed amount.

Addus HomeCare Corporation (NASDAQ: ADUS), which provides hospice in addition to other a home care services, recently completed the purchase of Hospice Partners of America, LLC, a multi-state provider of hospice services headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., for a cash purchase price of $130.0 million.

A number of other high-profile companies, including Amedisys (NASDAQ: AMED) and LHC Group (NASDAQ: LHCG) have said they are actively seeking new acquisitions, focusing more of their efforts on building their hospice segments.

AngMar Medical Holdings is seeking additional hospice and home health acquisitions with the goal of co-locating both service lines in strategic markets, creating a continuum of care. AngMar is currently negotiating the purchase of a large hospice company that has offices in Texas, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

“We are interested in expanding our hospice wherever we can get it and especially where we have a footprint for home health. Ideally within five years we would have a hospice location in every one of the markets where we have home health locations currently,” Miller told Hospice News. “We decided that we wanted to enter the hospice space in order to be able to offer two different product lines for our referral sources, while at the same time having an opportunity for a patient with chronic illness that had progressed to the point that it really needed a more supportive benefit like the [Medicare]hospice benefit.”