Lorient Capital-backed PurposeCare has acquired three more Midwestern home care agencies. In total, the company has made seven acquisitions in the last year.
Its most recent moves include: acquiring the assets of A/Abiding Care-Elder Bridge (AAEB), a private home care agency in Illinois; acquisition of equity interests in Michiana Home Care, which provides home health care through two locations in Michigan and Indiana; acquisition of equity interests in Queen City Skilled Care, another home health service based in Ohio;
“I think these are strategic [businesses] they're, obviously, in the geographies that we're in,” PurposeCare CEO Rich Keller told Home Health Care News. “We are building a platform to coordinate care between home care and home healthcare. We have this footprint in the northeast corner of Indiana, plus this southwest corner of Michigan. We continue to build that Ohio footprint – Cincinnati is a key market for us. And these are high-quality agencies.”
Based in Chicago and founded in 2021, PurposeCare provides both home care and home health care in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. It has a particular focus on the dual eligible population. The company provides care to more than 4,000 patients monthly.
Last March, the company acquired St. Louis-based Home Sweet Home In-Home Care. Joseph Michigan. In July, it announced it had acquired three more companies: Indiana-based Scott's Home Healthcare and Attentive Personal Care, and Ohio-based Choice Nursing Care & Home Health.
It now has about 26 total locations in its network.
With AAEB, the company is delving into private pay home care – in a meaningful way – for the first time. Keller believes it's a good opportunity to diversify payer sources.
“The primary payer for home care is Medicaid, and that will be true for us as well,” Keller said. “But obviously there are other sources of payment and it's nice to have our hands on those.”
In 2024, the company plans to continue growing. It could also enter new states, though Keller did not disclose details.
He added, however, that entry into new states will depend on the environment for home and community-based services.
“We want to build depth and density in the four states that we're in, but to the extent that we can find other opportunities in other states, I can envision us going into another state or two in the next couple of years,” Keller said. . “I wouldn't say it's a series of acquisitions that we want to do, it's really going to be opportunistic based on where we can find businesses that are strategic.”
The goal in the new year will also be to implement the strategy Keller laid out in 2021 when the company started: to provide coordinated care between home health care and home care.
“This is the third year, and it's really about the execution,” he said. “We now have the opportunity to provide coordinated care in every market we're in.”
