By Stephen Tweed
What is your strategy for growing your home health agency? How will Post-acute Care Bundling and Value Based Purchasing affect your strategy? What are your competitors doing that will affect your strategy? As a leader in home health care who is responsible for your agency’s business growth strategy, you will want to pay close attention to what the major publicly traded home health companies are doing. For example …
LHC Group Focusing on Joint Venture
LHC Group, based in Lafayette, Louisiana has recently refocused it’s expansion efforts. For several years, LHC Group was acquiring stand alone home health agencies that fit into is growth plan. Now, they are refocused on developing Joint Ventures with hospitals and health systems as part of their acquisition strategy. They are focusing on acquiring agencies that are part of larger systems that bring greater patient volume with higher acuity needs. This is part of their goal of increasing Medicare patient mix.
LHC Group has begun running ads in Modern Healthcare. Its “We’re rewriting post-acute healthcare” ad promotes their experience in a post-acute strategy for hospitals. They talk about their experience in pioneering the hospital partnership model over 20 years.
How can a small local home health agency compete with a publicly traded industry leader who is advertising in a major hospital industry publication? How will you compete with a large hospital affiliated home health agency that has access to their ACO, their bundled payments, their physician groups, and their readmission reduction program?
Amedisys Moving to Nashville, Buys Private Duty Company
In other home health industry news, Amedisys announced that is is moving 33 of its top executives from Baton Rouge, LA to Nashville, TN. This puts them closer to other industry leading companies and will make it easier to recruit executives in an area that is more centrally located and where the health care industry is rapidly growing. Amedisys also announced on August 1, 2016 that is has acquired Professional Profiles, Inc. a private duty home care company in Danvers, MA that generates $9.7 in annual revenue.
Almost Family Focused on being a Consolidator
At the same time, Almost Family, the fourth largest home health provider is continue to grow through acquisition. They now have 23 home health care branches in 15 states and generated $615 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2016. The company recently expanded into Wisconsin. Almost family has also acquired Natick, Massachusetts-based Long Term Solutions, Inc., one of the largest providers of in-home nursing assessments for the long-term care insurance industry. LTS provides long-term care assessment, planning and support services to its insurance company business partners and also utilizes its national network of nurses and health professionals to provide long-term care coordination services to help develop a plan of care and coordinate in-home care and assisted living community referrals.
Kindred At Home Acquires Arkansas Home Health Agency
And early this month, Kindred Health Care, the parent company of the home health giant Gentiva, announced that is has acquired the home health agency operated by the Arkansas Department of Health. This acquisition gives Kindred At Home the licenses to provide home health and personal care services in 69 counties, and hospice services in 42 counties. Kindred At Home will have a presence in 72 of Arkansas’ 75 counties.
If you are not Amedisys, LHC Group, Kindred, or Almost Family, what will you do to grow your business and capture share of your local marketplace?
You Need Strategic Focus
To compete with the big guys, and all of the smaller local companies, every home health care leadership team needs to be working on Strategic Focus. We define Strategic Focus as “having a clear vision for the future, having a strategy to get there, and having the talent to execute with excellence.” Call us today at 502-339-0653 to discuss creating Strategic Focus for your agency.
