BrightSpring CEO: Home-Based Primary Care Holds Major Upside For ACO, Payer Strategies

The leadership team at BrightSpring Health Services (Nasdaq: BTSG) has highlighted home-based primary care as a major business opportunity in the near future.

“Home-based primary care represents a significant opportunity in the coming years, with ACO and payer strategies continuing to develop,” BrightSpring President and CEO Jon Rousseau said Thursday during the company’s fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call.

Based in Louisville, Kentucky, BrightSpring delivers care to patients in the home and in the community. The company focuses on complex populations, offering primary care, home- and community-based services, pharmacy services and rehab services to over 400,000 consumers throughout 50 states.

Advertisement

Rousseau noted that BrightSpring’s primary care business has seen expansion and growth in areas where the company leverages proximity and access to patients, including through pharmacy and provider services.

For BrightSpring, building out its home-based primary care business is complementary to its pharmacy and provider services.

“It’s just allowing us to, ultimately, better manage outcomes for patients,” Rousseau said. “Secondarily, there is an economic stream there, if you can get more appropriately compensated for the great outcomes that you’re providing.”

Advertisement

Furthermore, Rousseau stressed the upside that home-based primary care can deliver within ACO frameworks in which dollars are tied to cost and quality goals across patient populations

“Our focus in home-based primary care is, how do we continue to drive that incredibly valuable service to as many patients as we can and get them in the ACO, so that we can drive more and more shared savings,” he said. “We said before our five- to seven-year goal is how are we serving at least 100,000 or more people? That’s what we’re working towards.”

New CFO

Ahead of the call, BrightSpring also announced the promotion of Jennifer Phipps, who has served in a number of other positions, to the role of chief financial officer. She succeeds Jim Mattingly, effective March 4.

Most recently, Phipps served as chief accounting officer and principal accounting officer, as well as CFO of BrightSpring’s home health and hospice segment and senior vice president of treasury, risk, tax, real estate and procurement for the company.

“[Phipps] has been deeply involved in all financial systems and processes over the years, as well as all acquisitions and divestitures and many automation and efficiency initiatives,” Rousseau said. “Jen is well prepared, knows the entirety of the company, and is very deserving of this position.”

Overall, BrightSpring saw $3.1 billion in revenue for Q4. This was a 28.6% increase compared to $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.

BrightSpring’s provider services segment brought in $656 million in the fourth quarter, which represented 11% growth and beat analysts’ consensus estimates by $30 million, according to SeekingAlpha. Within the provider services segment, home health care reported $280 million in revenue, growing 17% compared to the previous year.

For the full year of 2024, BrightSpring’s total company revenue was $11.3 billion, representing 28% growth.

Looking ahead, Rousseau identified the company’s key focus areas for 2025.

“We are focused on delivering on our 2025 financial outlook through quality, volume growth, process optimizations and cost efficiencies, accretive acquisitions and effective portfolio and asset management and deployment,” he said.

Companies featured in this article: