Three Illinois nonprofit hospice companies said Tuesday that they will combine, forming what’s expected to be the largest end-of-life provider by patient volume in the state.
The companies — Chicago-based Horizon Hospice & Palliative Care, Barrington-based JourneyCare and Glenview-based Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter — will emerge with a new name after the deal is completed June 1.
The combined hospices will be able to care for about 2,500 patients daily in 10 Chicago-area counties. Sarah Bealles, president and chief executive of JourneyCare, will assume the same role with the new company.
The companies collectively employ 800 health care professionals, with home visits making up more than 90 percent of their business. The deal, subject to regulatory approval, involves combining the assets and liabilities of the three businesses. No money is changing hands.
Mary Runge, Horizon’s chief executive, said putting the deal together was a collaborative effort.
“Three CEOs for over the last few years really put our own ambitions aside and there was never any triangulation or fear of losing our jobs, but only a focus on how this can be better,” Runge said. “It’s very special, this merger.”
The combined companies’ revenues in 2013 were about $80.9 million, the equivalent of about 15 percent of the $548.3 million spent on hospice care that year in Illinois, according to research organization Hospice Analytics. JourneyCare and Midwest Hospice each have annual revenue of more than $30 million; Horizon’s annual revenue is less than $13 million.
Nearly 150 hospice care providers operate in the state, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. About half of them are in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.
The combining companies were some of the first to open in the Chicago area nearly three decades ago when hospice care was still largely volunteer-based. Some of the companies’ original funders still serve on their respective boards. The three CEOs have worked together; in 2006 they formed a loose affiliation through a purchasing collaborative.
By combining, the companies will be able to spread their strengths across the new company, Bealles said. JourneyCare and Horizon are known for their pediatric hospice care programs, she said, while Midwest has an accredited Jewish care program and many health system relationships.
An aging population will likely increase business for hospice care in the coming years, Bealles said.
Baby boomers, she said, typically want more control over the care they receive. Just half of people who know they’re in their final months or days of life choose hospice care.
“Typically in the last couple years of life, someone who has a progressive illness will end up hospitalized and then they’ll go to rehab and then they’ll go home where there’s not adequate support,” Bealles said.
Then they end up back in the hospital, often dying in an intensive care unit, she said, which is “both expensive and unpleasant.”
“What we’ve been able to do with hospice care is stop that cycle,” Bealles said. Hospice care has been shown to save the health care system money, she said. It’s cheaper to die in a hospice center or at home than at a hospital.
Since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, hospital systems and other health care companies have been consolidating as reimbursements become lower and payments increasingly are tied to patient outcomes.
“Our health care partners are consolidating and at the same time narrowing their networks, looking for those that provide best value, outcomes and cost,” Bealles said. “And you have to be able to serve their entire population. The ability to be that partner of choice in our community is really what’s driving this.”
Bealles said she was drawn to the industry after she joined a hospice company in Madison, Wis.
Her first week, while walking out of the lunch room, she heard a bell ring, indicating someone had died. A co-worker told her to wait near the hospice’s entry to witness a processional.
Workers wheeled out the body, draped in a beautiful quilt. Family members reached out to touch the deceased. Bealles, in awe at the intersection of compassion, respect, sorrow and joy, was in tears.
Twitter @ellenjeanhirst
New company’s inpatient locations
Pepper Family Hospice Center, 405 Lake Zurich Road, Barrington
Woodstock Hospice Center, 527 W. South St., Woodstock
Marshak Family Hospice Pavilion, 2050 Claire Court, Glenview
Hospice Suite at Northwest Community Hospital, 800 W. Central Road, Arlington Heights
Ada F. Addington Inpatient Hospice Unit, 710 S. Paulina St., Chicago
The 10 counties served by home hospice and palliative care are: Boone, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, Will and Winnebago.
