Procura Healthcare Software—whose enterprise solutions are widely used by home health agencies—is gaining new scale, capabilities, and expertise in the hospice arena by acquiring Suncoast Solutions, the companies announced Thursday.
The scale of the two companies makes it a noteworthy transaction, and the deal also is yet another sign of the increasing integration of post-acute, senior care, and end-of-life services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Procura serves more than 4,200 customer sites, which include home health agencies, community care agencies, hospices, and residential care agencies in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The Schaumburg, Illinois-based company specializes in helping providers improve back office efficiency, scheduling, and coordination of care delivery. It currently serves 3 million total patients across across all brands and global regions.
Clearwater, Florida-based Suncoast specializes in hospice management products and serves approximately 100,000 hospice patients annually. Procura is purchasing both Suncoast’s technology and customer assets.
Suncoast is the technology arm of Empath Health, a nonprofit, integrated network of care providers specializing in chronic and advanced illnesses. Hospice, home health, palliative care, and HIV services and supports are among its offerings.
In conjunction with the acquisition, Procura and Empath are creating a home care and hospice advisory board. Empath board members will help determine how new and forthcoming hospice and home care regulations at the local and federal levels might affect product development, the companies stated.
“We feel that the knowledge expansion and increased expertise in hospice business that will come from both integrating the companies and this advisory board will further advance and evolve all of our future hospice offerings,” a Procura spokesman told Home Health Care News.
As for why now is the right moment for Procura to make a bet on hospice, the company points to the trend of health care providers diversifying into several lines of business, including home health agencies expanding into hospice.
The reasons for this are various but include Medicare and managed care payment incentives related to services that are more coordinated. By controlling more of the care continuum, providers have a greater ability to manage patients through various settings.
“Today’s announcement will have a significant impact on home health care delivery, whose providers are increasingly adding hospice services to their offerings,” said Chris Junker, CEO of Procura, in a prepared statement. “The acquisition combines Suncoast’s hospice knowledge with Procura’s expertise in deploying large, global, and complex software solutions to the health care community. This means we will be able to offer providers a stronger, fully integrated solution across all their lines of business.”
The Suncoast team that is in place will continue to serve its customers, according to the official announcement of the transaction.
The acquisition is subject to normal closing conditions and is expected to close on July 31.
Written by Tim Mullaney
Photo Credit: “Handshake,” CC BY-ND 2.0