Private Equity Health Care Acquisitions – March 2022

In light of the growing investor interest in healthcare and the risks associated with private equity ownership of healthcare companies, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project will be tracking private equity-backed healthcare acquisitions. Below is a list of private equity healthcare buyouts and add-on acquisitions completed or announced during March 2022. We will continue to track acquisitions on a monthly basis.

See February 2022 acquisitions here.

Private equity firms acquired several more home healthcare and hospice companies in March, continuing a trend of substantial private equity investment in the sectors.

For example, Traditions Health, owned by private equity firm Dorilton Capital, acquired Pursue Health and Serenity Health Management, which together are comprised of six home health and hospice in agencies in California, Nevada, and Kansas. Traditions now operates in 18 states. [1]

Traditions has been actively acquiring smaller regional home health and hospice agencies in recent years; in 2021 it acquired Homestead Hospice, which has 26 locations across Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Ohio, and Arizona, and four other companies in in Louisiana and Oklahoma. The company completed close to a dozen acquisitions in 2019 and 2020.[2]

Dorilton, which primarily invests in industrial and business services, acquired Traditions in 2011. It is the only healthcare company the firm owns.[3]

See our March 2022 report: Private Equity at Home: Wall Street’s Incursion into the Home Healthcare and Hospice Industries

Private equity firm Vistria Group bought Professional Health Care Network (PHCN) from private equity firm Serent Capital. PHCN is a management services company that manages home health benefit for major insurance plans with the focus on Medicare Advantage and managed Medicaid patients.[4]

Vistria is a prolific health care investor, including in home health companies Help at Home and Mission Healthcare.[5] Vistria also owns Behavioral Health Solutions, a behavioral health company that acquired home-based geriatric therapy provider Colorado In-Home Counseling in March.[6]

Vistria Group’s healthcare companies have attracted scrutiny for profit-seeking tactics that hurt patients; its air ambulance company Angel Medflight came under fire for surprise medical billing practices that saddled one patient with a $489,000 bill for medical transport, and another with a $474,725 bill.[7] Disability services provider Sevita Health (fka Mentor Network), which Vistria co-owns with Centerbridge Partners, has garnered criticism for paying massive debt-funded dividends to the private equity owners despite profound quality and safety concerns.[8]

The home health and hospice deals in March are part of a growing trend of private equity investment in the industries. From 2018 and 2019, private equity was involved in almost 50% of deals in the home healthcare industry, and private equity hospice transactions rose nearly 25% between 2011 to 2020.[9]

For-profit home healthcare and hospice companies have been linked to lower standards of care compared to their non-profit counterparts. Private equity firms, which often target outsized returns over short time horizons, may exacerbate that divide.[10]

March 2022 Buyouts

March 2022 Add-On Acquisitions

[1]https://www.traditionshealth.com/news/traditions-health-acquires-agencies-in-california-nevada-and-kansas

[2]https://hospicenews.com/2021/12/01/traditions-health-acquires-multi-state-provider-homestead-hospice/ ; https://hospicenews.com/2021/01/06/traditions-health-acquires-four-companies-two-of-them-hospices/

[3]https://doriltongroup.com/portfolio/traditions-health/#:~:text=Traditions%20Health%20is%20a%20leading,8%2C500%20patients%20across%2017%20states.

[4]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220406005897/en/Serent-Capital-Announces-Sale-of-Professional-Health-Care-Network-PHCN

[5]https://www.vistria.com/portfolio/

[6] Pitchbook, accessed April 2022.

[7]https://health.wusf.usf.edu/npr-health/2022-03-25/the-case-of-the-489-000-air-ambulance-ride ; https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/12/20/cunningham-angel-medflight-charges

[8]https://www.reuters.com/business/private-equitys-latest-play-troubled-kids-industry-2022-02-17/

[9]https://homehealthcarenews.com/2020/02/private-equity-likely-to-deploy-1-5-trillion-war-chest-in-home-based-care-market/

[10]https://pestakeholder.org/report/private-equity-at-home-wall-streets-incursion-into-the-home-healthcare-and-hospice-industries/