Kalorama Information Sees Growth in Hospice Market

Online, June 15, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Healthcare market research publisher Kalorama Information sees about a 8% growth in the coming year in the nearly $20 billon hospice market in its report Long Term Care Markets (http://www.kaloramainformation.com/Term-Care-Nursing-2578516/) a market that may benefit from the recent healthcare reform bill and possible legislation. Hospices provide palliative, rather than curative, care to terminally ill patients and their families. This often involves an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing medical, psychological, and spiritual care. The main focus is on keeping the patient comfortable and free of pain, as well as making sure that any advance directives or other final wishes are followed. The average interval between admission into a hospice program and death is about two months, although some patients utilize hospice services for six months or more. The recent healthcare reform bill passed this year addressed payment for hospice services but left specifics to administrative decisions at Health and Human Services. Still the industry believes the legislation will lead to a clear reimbursement policy for hospice services.

Like other long term care markets, the U.S. market for hospice services is extremely fragmented, with a large number of players. In 2009, the leading company, privately-held Vitas Healthcare, held just 4.9% share with revenues of $937 million. It was followed by publicly traded Odyssey Healthcare with 3.5% share and sales of $690 million. In general, those active in the hospice market are not active in other segments of the long term care market, but a few of the larger diversified nursing home and homecare companies also operate hospices. For example, Golden Living (which acquired Beverly Enterprises in 2006), HCR Manor Care and Sunrise also run relatively small hospice operations. Golden Living's hospice business comprised less than 5% of the company's overall revenues as most of these are offices rather than in-patient facilities. Similarly, hospice accounted for less than 7% of total revenues for Amedisys, even though the company operates more than 60 hospice locations.