Hospice Provider Androscoggin Acquires Care & Comfort, Moves Into Behavioral Health – Hospice News

Maine-based Androscoggin Home Health Care + Hospice acquired home and behavioral health care company Care & Comfort for an undisclosed sum. The behavioral health component represents a new line of business for Androscoggin, a move driven by a demonstrated need for those services in its home state.

The deal is scheduled to close on February 1. Care & Comfort chose to sell after the retirement of its founder Susan Giguere. Company President and CEO Mike Stair will assume an executive role at Androscoggin.

The decision to buy was based on four key factors, according to Androscoggin CEO Ken Albert, including Care & Comfort’s strong reputation in the community, the company’s financial performance, low employee turnover, and positive perception of staff. about the organization.

“Susan Giguere started the company 31 years ago with a computer on a table in her home and has really focused on being an extraordinary employer and producing a quality product,” Albert told Hospice News. “Based on our due diligence from a financial and legal perspective, they checked all the boxes. They have done a very good job building an employee base and a good reputation here. “

Hospice and hospice utilization in Maine reached 51.4% among Medicare deaths in 2018, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). This was almost the national average of just over 50%. Utah had the highest rate that year with utilization of 60.4%. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 1 in 5 people in Maine was 65 or older in 2019, representing 21.2% of the state’s population.

The Care & Comfort footprint includes five locations serving care in 13 Maine counties. Androscoggin is a not-for-profit provider, while Care & Comfort has historically been a for-profit company. Following the acquisition, Care & Comfort will advance as an Androscoggin brand with non-profit status.

The CEOs of the two organizations have known each other for several years, Albert said.

Albert, who is a lawyer and a registered nurse by training, met both the Giguere family and the Stair through his previous capacity as a regulator and legal advisor to healthcare companies. Before joining Androscoggin, he was director of the Maine Division of Regulatory and Licensing Services, which later joined the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, where Albert served as director and chief operating officer.

Prior to his government job, Albert was an attorney with the firm of Norman, Hanson and DeTroy, also located in Maine.

The two companies began discussions about the transaction ahead of the pandemic, but COVID-19 and changes in the regulatory landscape temporarily delayed the deal. They reviewed the negotiations from June 2021.

The acquisition marks Androscoggin’s return to the behavioral health space. The company has offered these services in the past. The decision to include those services in its portfolio followed a community health needs assessment that the Internal Revenue Service requires hospitals to perform every two years, Albert said.

These assessments ranked behavioral health in the top 10 most pressing needs in each of Maine’s counties for the past three two-year cycles. The need has only grown. For all counties, the 2021 assessment identified behavioral health as the No. 1 or No. 2 community health need, particularly in rural areas.

The new line of business opens up a new range of potential referral partners for Androscoggin, as well as an attractive Medicaid reimbursement structure. The company will receive Medicaid payments through medical homes and behavioral health homes, which are designed to reduce costs and improve the quality of care for patients with chronic and complex health needs.

“The behavior-based home model for repayment is very attractive to us,” said Albert. “We are clearly looking to expand to [licensed clinical social workers and licensed clinical professional counselors] and other behavioral health services as a means of partnering with our other referral sources for a full range of services in the home, including behavioral health. ”