Four nonprofit hospices have affiliated with Chapters Health System, expanding the Florida-based hospice and senior services provider to three new states.

The agreement includes Hospice of East Bay and Hospice of Santa Cruz County in California, as well as Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas and Willamette Vital Health in Oregon. This marks Chapters first foray into those states, which will be reorganized under the umbrella Chapters Health West. The affiliating organizations themselves will retain their original brands.

“Our expansion out west represents our organizational belief in working out of a position of strength, or a kind of hub-and-spoke model, where you have organizations of long-standing reputation anchoring a certain geography, and you build your health care ecosystem delivery model around that,” Andrew Molosky, president and CEO of Chapters Health, told Hospice News. “It’s way more than just dots on a map. Our ability to provide an entire ecosystem approach is jump started when you have a group or a density in a geographic area.”

In addition to its new Western locations, the nonprofit Chapters Health System provides hospice, palliative and home health care, as well as durable medical equipment and pharmacy services, across Florida, Georgia, New York and New Jersey. Following the company’s 2023 affiliation with Capital Caring Health, its network expanded to Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, encompassing 14 counties and four metropolitan areas.

Chapters also offers hospice and palliative care services through five other brands: Chapters Health Palliative Care, Good Shepherd Hospice, Capital Caring Health, Hospice of Okeechobee, HPH Hospice and LifePath Hospice.

Fueling the expansion are two affiliation-building strategies that Chapters introduced in 2020, the Chapters Health Managed Service Organization (MSO) program and Chapters CareNu.

The two programs are designed to support legacy nonprofits seeking to better position themselves to compete with larger companies that often have more capital at their disposal. The MSO program is oriented around hospices, whereas CareNu is designed for those who provide upstream services.

Chapters’ four new affiliates offer a range of services, including hospice, palliative care, supportive services, pediatrics, bereavement care and residential care, among others. Some also have value-based payer contracts and partnerships with hospitals and health systems.

“It’s a pretty diverse portfolio. As Chapters goes, we think of ourselves as a mission-oriented, chronic illness management and end-of-life care organization,” Molosky said. “When you have a diverse portfolio like that, it fits in seamlessly, as we are well beyond just the status of a hospice-only organization.”