The LHC Group, Inc., one of the largest providers of home health services in the United States, has acquired Access Hospice Care in Branson, Mo.
Effective Jan. 1, 2010, the acquisition isn't expected to add materially to the LHC Group's earnings in 2010, according to LHC Group President Keith G. Myers. Net revenue for the Missouri agency during the most recent 12 months was approximately $1 million.
"In 2008, we acquired the home health segment from Access, so this acquisition is a natural fit for LHC Group and allows us to increase our services to patients and families in southwest Missouri," Myers said.
The service area of the acquisition spans 13 counties in southwest Missouri and has an estimated population of 782,000, with almost 15 percent over the age of 65.
The LHC Group, based in Lafayette, La., also announced that it has entered into a home health joint venture with Preston Memorial Hospital in a Kingwood, W.Va., a 25-bed, critical access, acute care facility serving a five-county region in West Virginia, a Certificate of Need state.
The LHC Group provides post-acute healthcare services through home health and hospice locations in its home-based division and long-term acute care hospitals in its facility-based division.