Improved staffing conditions have turned hospice into a growth engine for Enhabit Inc. (NYSE: EHAB).
Hospice currently represents about 20% of Enhabit’s patient volume, CEO Barbara Jacobsmeyer said at the HomeCare 100 conference in Florida. The segment is primed for more growth, driven to a large extent by increased clinical capacity.
“[Hospice] is an area that continues to have some nice ability to grow. A lot of that has been because we have been able to go with a little bit of more labor,” Jacobsmeyer said at the conference. “Really, it’s more about establishing what I would say is kind of our better care model — starting with our team and making sure that we have the right care model in place.”
Employing an updated case management model has helped Enhabit in reinforcing its hospice clinical workforce. The company in 2022 began leveraging the model to reduce turnover, seeing the strategy bearing fruit in stronger retention, clinical capacity and census growth.
The case management model has allowed the company to focus greater attention on growing its business development and admission department teams with a goal of more timely patient access and faster referral responses, according to Jacobsmeyer.
Enhabit operates 225 home health locations and 110 hospice locations across 34 states. The company’s average daily hospice census in Q3 2024 rose 6.9% year-over-year to 3,622, up from 3,388 the prior year’s same period.
Enhabit expects patient census growth across both its home health and hospice service lines in 2025 and anticipates exceeding 2024 results, Jacobsmeyer said in a recent earnings call.
“That we can recruit has been the most critical step for us, of the growth we’ve seen since COVID and in the last year,” Jacobsmeyer said. “We’ve been able to stabilize that, and the patients are there that need our care. So that has really been an area of growth for us.”