Payers Can ‘Feed Their Own Machine’ With Hospice, Home Health Deals

Recent acquisitions of large hospice and home health providers by insurance companies suggest a drive among payers to reduce financial risk and improve cost outcomes in value-based care arrangements. These deals include two of the largest in recent memory for the home-based care space. UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) recently agreed to purchase LHC Group (NASDAQ: […]

Hospice M&A to Stay Hot as Home Health Picks Up Steam

Mergers-and-acquisition activity continues to boom in the hospice space this year. Deal volume may exceed the record number from the prior two years. As many as 61% of the 203 hospice care professionals who responded to a recent Hospice News Outlook Survey and Report said they anticipate that hospice M&A activity will increase during 2022. […]

Aveanna, Advent International Reportedly Interested in Encompass Health’s ‘Enhabit’ Spinoff

Encompass Health Corporation (NYSE: EHC) last week announced it was keeping its options open on the potential sale or merger of its home health and hospice segment, Enhabit Home Health & Hospice. The spinoff saga continues to evolve, with new reports Monday naming Aveanna Healthcare Holdings (NASDAQ: AVAH) and global private equity firm Advent International […]

Hospice Operators Hunting for Non-Medical Home Care Deals

Hospice agencies have been in high demand in the health care mergers-and-acquisition market in recent years, particularly among private equity firms. As that trend continues, some hospices themselves are considering their own investments in businesses that can bolster their current services and bottom lines, including private-duty and non-medical home care care. A few factors are […]

Hospice M&A May Cool Down in 2022, Private Equity Influence to Expand

Mergers-and-acquisition activity in the hospice market has run hot in recent years, with valuations reaching another year of record-highs in 2021. Meanwhile, private equity activity hit record levels as well, with an affluence of investors that flowed into hospice waters during 2021. Despite these factors, the market may be cooling down this year as investors […]

HCA Healthcare Aiming to Make ‘Significant Strides’ on Hospice, Home Health Integration in Early 2022

HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA) – the big Nashville, Tennessee-based hospital network – is looking to make serious integration progress on the hospice and home health assets it purchased from Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (NYSE: BKD) last year. “We’re in the early stages of integration,” HCA CEO Sam Hazen said during a fourth-quarter earnings call […]

Nonprofit Hospices Selling to For-Profit Providers, Trend May Accelerate

Industry consolidation has been robust in the hospice space, with deal volume and valuations outpacing other health care industry sectors. Most of these transactions involve one for-profit company buying another. However, more instances are cropping up in which a for-profit agency purchases a nonprofit hospice. While individual nonprofits have grown in recent years, in aggregate […]

High Hospice Valuations Shift Amedisys M&A Towards Home Health

Amedisys (NASDAQ: AMED) will be honing its acquisitional focus more towards the home health care space heading into next year. Soaring valuations in hospice, along with a crowded market and the complexity of integrating these assets are among the factors pulling the company’s gaze, according to CEO Paul Kusserow. The hospice merger and acquisitions market […]

Hospice Fee-For-Service Model Attractive to Investors

Favorable demographics and rising demand are attracting a range of investors to the hospice space, with private equity leading the way in terms of deal volume. However, the fee-for-service payment model within the Medicare Hospice Benefit is also a key driver of buyers’ interest. Value-based payment programs have opened up to hospices in 2021. This […]

Wellspring Capital Acquires Caring Brands International

Private equity firm Wellspring Capital Management has acquired Caring Brands International, parent company of home health and hospice franchise company Interim Healthcare, for an undisclosed amount. The seller, PE outfit Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, purchased the company in 2015. Caring Brands is the seventh largest home-based care provider in the United States, in addition to […]