Eli's Hospice Insider

The home health and hospice M&A market has shown no sign of declining. “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.

“The Consortium intends to combine Curo with the hospice business of Kindred at Home to create the country’s largest hospice operator,” Humana, TPG Capital, and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe said in a joint release when the Curo deal closed.

“Insurers are moving aggressively into the business of providing health benefits to seniors through Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, which insurers sell to seniors via contracts with the federal government,” observes Forbes.com. “Insurers see acquisitions of providers who treat Medicare patients as a way to lock in more customers and lock out providers affiliated with other health plans.”