AccentCare Strikes Joint Venture Deal with UCLA Health

Dallas-based AccentCare is creating a joint venture-owned home health care agency with UCLA Health. The new agency, AccentCare UCLA Health, will serve patients in Los Angeles and surrounding communities.

AccentCare is a post-acute health care provider that operates under several regional brand names and has more than 140 locations in 11 states. UCLA Health includes four hospitals on two campuses. The joint venture aims to provide a continuum of care after patients have been discharged from the hospital.

“We are excited to begin this valuable partnership with UCLA Health’s award-winning team,” Steve Rodgers, CEO of AccentCare, said in a statement. “Patients will benefit from the health system’s extended reach and our commitment to achieving comprehensive care and exceptional health outcomes.”

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Under the terms of the agreement, UCLA Health will be responsible for clinical oversight of the post-acute services provided by the new agency, and AccentCare will provide day-to-day operational management, including patient intake, staffing and home health services.

“The joint venture is intended to be able to support UCLA patients broadly across their service area, in Los Angeles County and the surrounding areas,” Dr. Gregory Sheff, chief medical officer for AccentCare, Inc., told Home Health Care News.

Approximately 5,000 UCLA Health patients receive home health services each year, according to AccentCare.

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The joint venture is another example of a hospital partnering with established home health care providers to extend their services to patients.

“From our perspective, high quality health systems are realizing the importance of effectively managing care into the home,” Sheff said. “Home health… is a different skill set than operating a hospital. You’re distributing care in the home, not facility-based care. They want tightly integrated solutions and they have to make decisions on which services to fully operate and which to rely on an operating partner, an expert, to deliver.”

UCLA has not had its own home health care operations for a number of years.

“UCLA Health is committed to ensuring that our patients have access to a complete continuum of high-quality care, even after they leave our hospitals,” Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health, CEO of UCLA Hospital System and associate vice chancellor of health sciences, said in a statement. “This new service will help improve the overall patient experience as they transition home.”

AccentCare, which already has a presence in California, recently struck a joint venture deal with a major Texas health system, Baylor Scott & White, to manage that joint venture’s home health operations. AccentCare also recently entered the Mississippi market after it acquired Sta-Home in March.

Looking ahead, the company has “a number of deals in the pipeline” that include both acquisitions and joint ventures with hospitals, according to Sheff. AccentCare aims to boost its presence in its markets as part of its growth strategy.

“One of the things we focus on strategically is that it’s important to be dense and relevant in the markets we operate,” Sheff said. “We enter [the markets] in a way to have a robust presence, to attract high-quality clinicians and have meaningful relationships with other health care providers.”

Written by Amy Baxter

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