Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Nonprofits finalize affiliation.

Accepting donations, affiliation with a hospital or county, and nonprofit status are all characteristics that seem to be drawing community ire when home health and hospice sales or closures are contemplated.

Alive Hospice Inc. in Nashville, Tenn., is learning that lesson the hard way. Past Board chairs, the hospice’s founder, current employees, and donors are among those waging a very public campaign against a rumored sale of the nonprofit to a for-profit organization. The effort has so far has included a press conference, online petition with thousands of signatures, billboards, and a request for the Tennessee Attorney General to investigate, according to local news outlets. Multiple press reports identify Amedisys Inc. as the potential buyer.

“The Alive Board is committed to acting only in the best interest of the organization we love and its future,” the Board says in a release. “The comments being made about the Board’s actions are purely speculative,” it adds.

Reminder: Back in 2015, Alive paid more than $1.5 million to settle charges that it billed general inpatient (GIP) services for patients who didn’t quality for that level of care. The case was sparked by a whistleblower lawsuit from a nurse who worked there.

Meanwhile in Oregon, the Blue Mountain Hospital District Board of Directors has voted to move its home visits out of home health and into the “visiting nurse service” model run out of its medical clinic, reports the Blue Mountain Eagle newspaper. The Hospital Board made the vote over objections from the community and Blue Mountain Home Health and Hospice’s director, the Eagle says.

The agency’s hospice services are supposed to remain the same, the newspaper reports.

Other business news includes:

In Colorado: The Pennant Group Inc. has acquired the assets of Benefit Home Healthcare and Benefit By Your Side, which provides skilled home health, private duty, and community health services in Colorado Springs, the Eagle, Idaho-based chain says in a release. Cornerstone Healthcare Inc. is Pennant’s home health and hospice subsidiary.

In Florida and Virginia: Temple Terrace, Fla.-based Chapters Health System and Falls Church, Va.-based Capital Caring Health have completed their affiliation, the nonprofits say in a release. “Chapters Health and Capital Caring Health now represent the largest, not-for-profit advanced illness and hospice care organizations in the nation,” they say.