Choice Health Acquires Private Duty Company Instant Care, Enters Arizona Market

Texas-headquartered Choice Health at Home has entered the personal care space with the acquisition of Instant Care of Arizona for an undisclosed sum.

The transaction also gives Choice its first foothold in the Grand Canyon State. Established in 2003, Instant Care of Arizona provides in-home senior care and caregiving support to patients and their families in Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, among 15 other cities throughout the Maricopa County area.

The deal aligns with Choice’s goals of expanding geographically in the Southwest while building out the continuum of services they offer to patients within their Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and now Arizona service regions.

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“When we think really along the lines of that full continuum [of home-based care], we are developing our provider line, or home health line and hospice,” Choice Health at Home CEO David Jackson previously told Hospice News. “We have plans in those states within the next two quarters to really expand our footprint.”

Initially established in 2008 as a rehabilitation service provider, Choice expanded into home health during 2012 and later into hospice in 2018. In 2020 the company partnered with the investment firms Trive Capital and Coltala Holdings to widen its reach as a post-acute care company.

Earlier this year Choice secured a $190 million credit line led by Oxford Finance, a global specialty financial firm focused on life sciences and health care investments. With that infusion of capital, Choice purchased Kindful Hospice and Amed Home.

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Kindful Hospice operated six locations in Oklahoma and Kansas, and Amed had eight offices in Texas. Amed is not affiliated with the publicly traded home health and hospice provider Amedisys (NASDAQ: AMED).

During 2021, Choice completed 10 transactions within the home health and hospice space. These included the acquisitions of two Oklahoma-based companies, Alpha Home Health and Hospice and Angelic Hospice.

“Our journey at Choice has always been about creating a continuum of care in the home,” Trina Lanier, president of Choice and co-founder of its hospice and home health segments, said in a statement. “This is a great step and one that establishes an excellent start in the state of Arizona.”

Similar to national demographic trends, demand for serious illness and end-of-life care is expected to swell in Arizona. The state’s 1.3 million seniors represent 18.3% of its overall population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2050, nearly 2.5 million people in the state will be 65 and older, the Arizona Department of Health Services projected.

The state ranks third in the nation in hospice utilization. More than 58% of Medicare descendants in Arizona elected hospice during 2018, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Instant Care Director of Operations Oliver Fultz has led the company for more than a decade, and will join Choice as its regional vice president of operations.

Deal volume for non-medical home care companies outstripped that for hospice or home health during the first half of the year. As of the end of Q2, this included 23 deals compared to 17 each for Medicare-certified home health and for hospice, according to a report by M&A advisory firm Mertz Taggart.

In addition, a rising number of hospice providers are showing interest in the personal care space, often through acquisitions.

“We see this service (personal care) as very supportive of home health and hospice,” Jackson said in a statement. “To that end, we are expanding private duty within the state of Texas to meet similar needs in that state. We will continue to look for quality businesses in the home health, attendant services, private duty, and hospice space.”

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