The leadership team at Aveanna Healthcare Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: AVAH) is clear-eyed about what the company’s priorities are for the rest of 2025.

During a recent appearance at the Bank of America Securities Health Care Conference, Aveanna Healthcare CEO Jeff Shaner laid out a number of the company’s key strategic initiatives, including the company’s plans to continue enhancing partnerships with government partners and preferred payers, and its focus on identifying cost efficiencies and synergies to leverage growth.

Regarding the first strategic initiative, Aveanna’s goal was to increase the number of preferred payer agreements from 22 to 30. Shaner noted that the company is well on its way to reaching this goal and added two new preferred payer agreements in Q1.

For Aveanna, adding value-based agreements is another important component of the company’s preferred payer strategy.

“We start with enhanced reimbursement rates to attract nurses and track caregivers through additional wages, but the additional value-based agreements — which are bonus-oriented for achieving specific clinical outcomes and cost targets — are important,” Shaner said. “[It’s] continued evolution, from originally three back in 2022, to eight at the end of 2024 with the goal of reaching 12 by the end of this year.”

Atlanta-based Aveanna Healthcare offers a range of pediatric and adult health care services, including nursing, rehabilitation, occupational nursing in schools, therapy services, day treatment centers for medically fragile and chronically ill children and adults and home health and hospice services. The company has 327 locations across 34 states.

Aveanna’s government strategy is two-fold. The company is working to improve reimbursement rates in at least ten states and is advocating for Medicaid rate integrity on behalf of children with complex medical conditions. So far, the company has seen rate increases in five of the states in which it operates.

Aveanna has also set its sights on achieving a 5% to 7% organic growth this year.

“That is underpinned by the two strategies we just talked about, both preferred payer and the government affairs strategies,” Shaner said. “By aligning our clinical capacity with those government and payer partners that value our services, we can achieve accelerated growth in our business. Also, with the addition of value-based agreements that give us the potential for both upside to earn bonuses and achieve metrics and cost savings and accelerated growth.”

Ultimately, Aveanna’s leaders believe that the company has set itself up to see success down the line.

“We’re going to continue to execute on a very high level and stay very focused on a disciplined strategy, but around scale, clinical excellence and strong partnerships and government and payer relations,” Matthew Buckhalter, chief financial officer of Aveanna, said during the presentation. “With a growing national footprint, balanced capital structure and strong momentum in [2025], Aveanna is well-positioned to deliver long-term value to patients, families and our stakeholders.”