Brookdale Ranks Among Largest Home Health Providers

Providers across the senior care spectrum are tapping into the home health market to expand their services, as evidenced by LexisNexis’ 2015 rankings of the leading providers of home health in the United States. Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD) snagged a spot among the top-10 home health providers, and it’s not the only company with multiple care settings in the standings.

Released Wednesday, the LexisNexis 2015 Top 100 Home Health and Hospice Agencies Rankings is a report that ranks Medicare-certified home health providers by national market share, aimed at mapping the market landscape for potential merger and acquisition activity. The top providers were compiled using patient volume data and medical claims by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a subsidiary of LexisNexis that helps customers in various industries predict, assess and manage risk.

LexisNexis gathered and analyzed more than 1.2 billion claims from practice management and billing systems, claims clearing houses and payers including government agencies, according to a news release.

“The purpose of it is to understand where you stand in regard to your competition, how large you are. It’s a good measuring stick from that perspective,” Chris Golden, home health and hospice strategist for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, tells Senior Housing News.

Beyond that, Golden says the rankings provide some perspective on trends in the home health space, particularly in how top-10 providers such as Kindred Healthcare (NYSE: KND) and Brookdale are more frequently spanning several care settings.

“There are three companies that were largely known for providing care in other settings that are now three of the largest home care providers in the country,” Golden says. “That wasn’t the case if you look back two years ago; it was basically all companies that were focused on specific settings. It sheds some light on how the market is shaping up.”

The list comes as M&A activity within the home health space has been on the upswing, with signs pointing toward the largest companies positioning themselves to drive even more affiliations. More streamlined care from fewer providers could be the result, Golden says.

“Consolidation is a trend that we’ve been seeing and would expect to continue,” Golden says. “If you can start to be able to offer that full range of service, you can provide a pretty convincing case to be the provider of choice for a given health system, which is only going to help grow your market share and increase your number of patients.”

And the numbers suggest that there’s plenty of room for the industry to consolidate, given that the top two providers—Kindred and Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED)—together account for less than 10.5% of the total market.

According to the LexisNexis Risk Solutions findings, these are the top 10 home health agencies in the U.S.:

Written by Kourtney Liepelt