Home Health & Hospice Week

The only publicly traded company that improved its income still suffered a loss.

The home care industry’s giant publicly traded chain took a giant loss in the latest quarter.

Atlanta-based Gentiva Health Services Inc. reported a whopping $401.8 million loss on $486.1 million in revenues for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared to an $8.8 million profit on $425 million in revenues in the same period of 2012. The company saw hundreds of millions in charges “based on an impairment of the Company’s goodwill and other long-lived assets that was performed during the quarter,” the national chain says in its earnings release.

Gentiva wasn’t the only publicly traded chain to record a loss for the quarter. Baton Rouge, La.-based Amedisys Inc. reported a $9.6 million loss on $303.5 million in revenues, compared to a much bigger $106.8 million loss on $351.6 million in revenues for the year-ago quarter. “An unexpected increase in employee healthcare costs contributed to the lower results,” Interim CEO Ronald A. LaBorde said in a release. Amedisys recently an-nounced the resignation of founder and former CEO William Borne (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIII, No. 8).

The other two publicly traded home care chains had earnings that were a bit rosier. Louisville, Ky.-based Almost Family Inc. squeezed out a $150,000 net income on $96.3 million in earnings, compared to a $3.7 million profit on $85.4 million for the same period in 2012. Last year was “another difficult year for the industry on the reimbursement and regulatory front,” acknowledged Almost Family CEO William Yarmuth in a release. Rebasing cuts will create “ongoing challenges over the next few years,” he added.

Lafayette, Ind.-based LHC Group Inc. reported a $29.1 million profit on $165.2 million in revenues for the quarter, compared to a $35.4 million profit on $161.8 million in revenues a year ago.