Home Health & Hospice Week

Private equity’s involvement in home care continues to be in the spotlight.

This time, nonprofit news outlet Stateline highlights Help at Home’s withdrawal from Alabama (see HHHW by AAPC, Vol. XXXII, No. 34). Chicago-based Help at Home is owned by PE firms Centerbridge Partners and Vistria Group.

PE-backed healthcare providers “want to cut costs, increase cash flow, use debt to fund expansion and then sell within a few years for maximum profit,” Stateline summarizes. “That business model can diminish the quality of care, increase costs and narrow access for patients — particularly in more lightly regulated industries such as home care and hospice care,” it says.

“Piling debt onto a company to finance additional purchases or to pay investors a dividend is a private equity hallmark,” Stateline says. “A private equity-owned company struggling under high debt payments might make the business decision to unload its services in one state while expanding in a state that can better help the business stay afloat,” it notes.

See the story at https://stateline.org/2024/01/31/ private-equitys-growing-footprint-in-home-health-care-draws-scrutiny.