The home health and hospice M&A market has shown no sign of declining — although that could change after the reality of payment reform and pre-claim review take hold. “For two quarters in a row, there have been at least 20 publicly announced acquisitions of home health or hospice companies, a much higher quarterly volume than during most of 2017,” points out HealthCareMandA.com in a release. Q2’s 21 deals compares to 12 announced deals in the second quarter of 2017. The largest deals of the quarter were Humana’s purchase, in conjunction with its private equity partners, of Kindred at Home for $3.1 billion and Curo Health Services at $1.4 billion (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXVII, No. 27).