Paul Kusserow will retire as CEO of the hospice and home health company Amedisys (NASDAQ: AMED) effective April 15, with current President and COO Chris Gerard to succeed him. Kusserow will remain chairman of the board of directors.
During Kusserow’s tenure as CEO, which began in 2014, Amedisys’ market capitalization rose to more than $5.3 billion from $900 million, and the company’s service offerings expanded its care continuum from home health and hospice to include palliative care, personal care, hospital-at-home and skilled-nursing-facility-at-home. He came to the company from Humana Inc., (NYSE: HUM), where he served as chief strategy, innovation and corporate development officer.
“Having the opportunity to be part of and lead Amedisys for the past seven years has genuinely been the highlight of my career. Seeing what we have built since 2014, the talent we have developed, the patients we have cared for and the quality care we have focused on and delivered has been simply astonishing,” Kusserow said. “Though there is so much to be proud of, I am especially proud of the team we have assembled across the organization which is why I am so confident in a seamless transition to Chris.”
Gerard co-founded IntegraCare Home Health in 1998 and in 2007 became the company’s CEO, taking one start-up location and growing it to a 54-site operation with $71 million in annual revenue. Kindred Healthcare purchased IntegraCare in 2021. Gerard became vice president of the South Central Region for Kindred At Home and was later appointed chief operating officer.
Kusserow came to Amedisys at a risky time. The company had just settled a False Claims Act case for $150 million and had seen stock prices and revenues plummet, trends that Kusserow and his team would turn around.
The company’s hospice segment alone saw patient census grow to more than 13,000, up from 4,600 in 2014. In that period the number of Amedisys hospice locations rose to 177, compared to 80 when Kusserow came on board. Much of this grown can be attributed to acquisitions.
Some of the company’s largest deals under Kusserow’s leadership include the $340 million purchase of Compassionate Care Hospice, which made Amedisys the third largest provider of those services in the nation.
More recently, Amedisys acquired Tennessee-based Contessa Health to bolster its offerings in high acuity home care, such as hospital-at-home and skilled-nursing-at-home. In 2020, the company bought AseraCare Hospice, which at the time was operating 44 hospice locations throughout 14 states with an average daily census of more than 2,100. Aseracare generated $117 million in revenue annually at the time of the acquisition. The price tag on AseraCare was $235 million.
Amedisys has also completed numerous smaller hospice transactions and tuck-ins during the past several years.
Other key initiatives during the past two years include expansion in the palliative care space, as well as greater investment in its personal care business through a partnership with BrightStar Care. The company also revamped its recruitment and retention strategies as the pandemic worsened labor pressures in the industry. This includes the addition of predictive analytics to its arsenal, which is showing promise when it comes to reducing turnover.
During Q3 of last year, Amedisys’ net service revenues jumped to $553.5 million up from $544.1 million during the prior year’s quarter. Due to pandemic-related headwinds, hospice segment revenues saw a dip in Q3 to $195.5 million from $199.7 million from the same period last year.
“Paul’s recipe for growth and service: quality, empathy, and diversity. It’s a combination that transforms care and leads to healthier and more fulfilling lives,” Health care investor and former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist wrote in Forbes last summer.
Amedisys brought in Kusserow with the objectives of stabilizing the business, putting the company back on a growth trajectory, building the infrastructure to support that growth and reorient the organizational culture to improve quality and employee satisfaction, according to Brian Tanquilut, senior vice president, Healthcare Services Equity Research, at Jefferies & Co.
Kusserow has delivered on these goals, Tanquilut indicated, citing the company’s rate of expansion, improved clinician retention, improved quality ratings and financial performance.
“Transitioning now to a CEO whose skillset is in core operations seems timely,” Tanquilut wrote in an investors’ note. “AMED is now on solid footing and is set up well for future growth, and the company’s investment story has shifted to one based on execution, so Mr. Gerard’s experience/strengths are well-suited to where AMED is in its lifecycle.”
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