Post-acute care company AccentCare and Rosemont, Ill.-based Seasons Hospice & Palliative Care have completed their planned merger, having cleared customary regulatory and governance hurdles. The combined company will provide a full continuum of home-based health care services, including hospice, palliative care, home health care and personal care.
AccentCare is a portfolio company of the private equity firm Advent International, which purchased the provider from Oak Hill Capital Partners in 2019 for an undisclosed sum. AccentCare CEO Steve Rodgers will lead the combined organization post-merger. Seasons CEO Todd Stern will helm the company’s hospice operations and will be named executive vice chair.
“During the last several years, we’ve witnessed a growing need for post-acute care services that are patient-centered and easy to navigate,” said Steve Rodgers, CEO of AccentCare. “With our expanded organization, we will be able to meet the demands of our patients and partners, and offer a full range of innovative solutions that streamline the process of accessing care.”
The merged organizations will become the fourth-largest hospice provider in the nation, according to Rodgers. Financial terms of the merger are confidential.
A major impetus for the merger was the desire to create a seamless continuum of home-based serious illness care that could support patients from diagnosis through the end of life. One critical need that the companies are seeking to address is improved patient navigation through the health care system. As the health care system has grown larger with a lean towards institutional care, the chronically and seriously ill are often falling through the cracks or not receiving the full range of services that could benefit them.
“What this merger does in terms of our clinical programs is really enable us to have a real continuum of care in the home in many more marketplaces. We’re looking at how we do more advanced services in the home,” said AccentCare Chief Medical Officer Anna Loengard, M.D. “[The merger] gives us an amazing platform to really see how we take what we’ve started on both of our sides of this spectrum, bring them together and be able to make this much more synergistic.”
The combined company will employ close to 30,000 workers caring for more than 175,000 patients from 225 locations in 26 states. Seasons’ home health subsidiary Health Resource Solutions will be included in the merger, as will its personal care subsidiary Gareda, which care for 2,500 and 4,500 patients, respectively.
The merged organization will continue dozens of joint ventures and partnerships with health systems, physician practices and payers.
“We’re thrilled to head into the New Year as one organization,” said Seasons CEO Stern. “The impact that we’re able to have together, with combined resources and new technologies, will only enhance the patient experience and quality of care for the individuals we serve and the partners who count on us.”
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