UnitedHealth Group’s proposed $5.4 billion buyout of home health and hospice provider LHC Group serves as another example of the health insurance industry’s ravenous appetite to own more parts of health care delivery, especially the care people receive in their homes.
But the interest in home health — a lower-cost venue that remains highly lucrative, particularly for the Medicare population of people 65 and older — has also come from a host of other companies with money to burn, including hospitals and financial investors like private equity firms.
“The hospital has been the epicenter of the health care system, and I think we’re seeing that change,” said Mark Kulik, a managing director at the Braff Group, an investment bank and advisory firm that specializes in home health and hospice deals. “It’s less expensive, by far, to provide care in the home, and people want it.”
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