Brookdale Aims for Rapid Growth in New Hospice Line

Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE:BKD) is seeing rapid growth in its hospice program to jumpstart the recent business line, said CEO Andy Smith in an interview with the Nashville Business Journal.

The company is touting itself as a full continuum of care services provider in a new national ad campaign launched earlier this year. Ads are appearing on TV channels including HGTV and in magazines like Real Simple, and Brookdale is promoting its ancillary service lines that range from home care to outpatient therapy to hospice, says the Business Journal.

Brookdale plans to continue building each of its core service lines of independent living, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing, along with its ancillary service offerings.

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“We expect to grow all of those business lines and we don’t favor one over the other,” Smith told the Business Journal. “Hospice is one that we are growing more rapidly right now because it’s a newer program for us.”

As of the end of the second quarter, Brookdale had nine hospice agencies in operation, five of which were in the start-up phase, according to the company’s earnings report. Mark Ohlendorf, Brookdale’s CFO, said the company expected to open at least three additional hospice care markets before the end of 2013.

Ohlendorf has previously said that ancillary services remain a “critical set of services” for its residents and as such are a key Brookdale differentiator, in addition to the revenue they provide to the company. In the second quarter of 2013, the company’s ancillary services programs generated $58.7 million of revenue. 

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Read the full interview with Andy Smith.

Written by Alyssa Gerace

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