A local outpost of the Visiting Nurses Association is halting service to El Paso customers, cutting its home health service offerings in the area. 

The Visiting Nurses Association Home Health Care of El Paso, the largest local provider of home health care, is cutting the home heath services it has previously offered, according to a local report by the El Paso Times. The organization currently serves 1,100 area patients, 180 of whom utilize home health services—one of the care types provided by the VNA. 

The organization cited rising costs and falling reimbursement rates among the reasons it will shutter its home health business. Competition weighed as another factor, the VNA’s president and CEO Joe Wardy told the El Paso Times. 

“Home health care is a very crowded field in this area with about 140 agencies providing those services,” Wardy said. “But no one is being left in the lurch. About half of the patients that participate in the program were transferred to other home health care agencies, while the other half will complete their treatment plans with us through the end of the month.”

The organization is maintaining a presence as a hospice provider in the area, according to the report. 

Written by Elizabeth Ecker