Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Hospice non-profit collaborative nears 100 members.

Enhabit Inc. has acquired Southwest Florida Home Care Inc.’s home health agency located in Fort Myers, Fla., the Dallas-based chain says in a release.

“This acquisition increases Enhabit’s existing footprint in Florida, which now totals 22 home health locations,” according to the company.

Enhabit operates 250 home health locations and 100 hospice locations across 34 states. The chain “is the fourth largest provider of Medicare-certified home health services and the 12th largest provider of Medicare-certified hospice services nationally,” it says.

Enhabit spun off from parent Encompass Health Corp. last summer.

Other recent deals include:

In Louisiana: The long-in-the-works merger between Lafayette-based LHC Group Inc. and United Health Group won’t happen until next quarter, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. LHC Group’s shareholders approved the $5.4 billion merger with United Health in June after both companies announced the pending deal in March, notes The Advocate newspaper.

In Kentucky: Humana Inc. is closing most of its SeniorBridge home care agencies, according to press reports. Locations in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia will close, while seven sites in New York will remain open for now. Louisville-based Humana announced its plan to sell a majority interest in the Hospice and Personal Care divisions of Humana’s Kindred at Home subsidiary for about $2.8 billion in cash last April (see HHHW, Vol. XXX, No. 15).

In Wisconsin: Adoray Home Health & Hospice has joined the National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), the Baldwin-based provider says in a release. “NPHI is a collaborative of almost 100 not-for-profit, community-integrated hospice and palliative care providers … from 35 states and the District of Columbia,” the organi­zation says on its website.

In Missouri: The Hermann Area District Hospital will shutter its home health agency, reports The Hermann Advertiser-Courier newspaper. “When you’re losing money you have to cut where you’re bleeding,” said HADH Administrator Dan McKinney. “We haven’t been able to make it break even for years,” said HADH Assistant Administrator Matt Siebert, according to the emissourian.com news outlet. The hospital is projected to lose $2 million this year.