LiveWell Partners recently acquired Hope Home Care, an Ohio-based home health provider. The deal is one of many finalized in recent weeks, reflecting a strengthened M&A environment in home-based care.
The transaction will allow LiveWell Partners to expand its footprint in Ohio, which is a market key to the company’s growth strategy.
“When you think about Ohio, it really is the outer edge of where we’re focusing strategically for our geographic scope,” LiveWell Partners CEO Jason Growe told Home Health Care News. “You have multiple metropolitan areas that really meet the characteristics of a geography that we would focus on. It’s a middle to large market with a strong base of Medicare eligible beneficiaries with a clinician base that we feel we’ll be able to attract on to our platform.”
LiveWell Partners is a home-based care company headquartered in St. Louis. The company currently operates in St. Louis, Kansas City, Wichita, Kansas, Detroit and Cincinnati. To date, the company has completed five transactions.
On its end, Hope Home Care is a Medicare-certified home health provider that is based in Miamisburg, Ohio. The company also offers aid services, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and medical social worker services.
Agenda Health — a health care-focused M&A advisory firm headquartered in Austin, Texas — aided Hope Home Care in facilitating the transaction.
Growe explained that LiveWell Partners was immediately interested in acquiring Hope Home Care.
“For one, there was just the great team that Hope Mullikin has built at her branch, but also really the dedication to quality that she’s demonstrated through high star ratings, positive patient feedback and great employee experiences as well,” he said.
Another thing that attracted LiveWell Partners to Hope Home Care was the latter’s success with Managed Medicaid patients.
“Through the quality care they’ve proven that they provide, they’ve been able to negotiate more favorable non-Medicare contracts, particularly in the managed Medicaid market in Ohio,” Growe said.
Growe noted that LiveWell Partners is looking to embrace payer flexibility.
Ultimately, LiveWell Partners is focused on enhancing clinical outcomes, and this is the driving force behind many of the company’s transactions.
“Quality clinical outcomes are really paramount to our work,” Growe said. “When we look at agencies that we want to partner with, and bring on to our platform, that’s one of the first things that we look at. Hope Home Care more than clears the bar, and we’re really excited about the partnership with them.”