Hospice merger and acquisition volume has regained momentum and is rapidly approaching pre-pandemic levels.
For hospice, 48 deals took place in 2019, according to the M&A advisory firm The Braff Group. This was followed by the record-breaking years of 2020 through 2022, in which nearly 70 hospice transactions completed annually. Then hospice M&A entered a lull. In 2023, only 25 deals took place.
The market began to pick up steam again in the fourth quarter of 2025, and that has continued through 2026, according to Mark Kulik, senior managing director of the M&A advisory firm The Braff Group.
“Our projection through midyear is 44 transactions for this year, and that is a new post-COVID high, if that number holds,” Kulik told Hospice News. “Of the 44, 30 have been either platform or bolt-on. Private equity is still vibrant in space, and that projection is significant. It’s quite possible that we could equal or surpass what was the previous high prior to the COVID years.”
Though transactions are returning in number, some are taking longer to complete. This is largely due to regulatory pressures, Cory Mertz, managing partner of the M&A firm Mertz Taggart, said.
Interest in hospice acquisitions remains strong, particularly among publicly traded companies and private equity firms, according to Mertz. However, heightened scrutiny of potential compliance and billing issues is extending the due diligence process and, in turn, delaying deal closings.
Transactions are taking longer to complete now than they ever have in the past, Mertz said.
Buyers are particularly concerned about audit risk and potential payment claw backs.
“The outlook is very strong for those hospices that are clean and compliant and doing well overall. We’re going to see a lot of transactions close. It’s just taking longer right now than it ever has been,” Mertz told Hospice News. “For those clean, compliant hospices, there is still you know super strong demand for those companies.”
Companies featured in this article:
