Sticky situation: Home Health Depot shrinks to grow

INDIANAPOLIS - By divesting Genesis Healthcare Services, Home Health Depot is getting back to basics, says Nate Feltman.

HHD in February sold the Atlanta-based Genesis, a provider of HME to hospice organizations, to Richland Hills, Texas-based Hospice Cloud. In the nearly five years since HHD acquired Genesis, it doubled its patient census and added many new customers.

Still, when a buyer came along and made them an offer they couldn't refuse, the provider accepted, so it could return its focus to its home state.

“Indiana is now our primary market and we just felt it was the right time to exit,” said Feltman president and CEO. “We have bought and sold (companies) throughout the seven years I've been an owner with this company. We're more opportunistic then anything.”

In the past, HHD has dipped its toe into complex rehab, eventually selling the division to National Seating & Mobility, and bulked up its respiratory business with the 2012 acquisition of RCS Management.

Today, HHD focuses primarily on DME and respiratory services with 100 employees and nine locations across Indiana.

Feltman attributes much of the provider's growth to two key points. The first: The implementation of the Affordable Care Act has ramped up conversations with hospital systems.

“Once the ACA started, the hospitals really began to care about anybody who touches the patients after they leave the hospital and the quality of care,” he said. “Today, a huge portion of our referrals come directly from hospital systems, and in many cases, we have preferred provider relationship liaisons at the hospitals.”

That quality of care dovetails nicely with HHD's second growth point: the addition of providing DME to hospice organizations in Indiana, which it added after the Genesis acquisition; and the addition of invasive ventilation, which it added about three years ago.

“As a result of growing in hospice, our relationships with the hospitals are even stickier,” Feltman said. “Hospice is critical to a hospital's reputation and when you do a good job on that side, it translates to other areas like DME, as well.”