Hospice care, once provided primarily by nonprofit agencies, has seen a remarkable shift over the past decade, with more than two-thirds of hospices nationwide now operating as for-profit entities. The ability to turn a quick profit in caring for people in their last days of life is attracting a new breed of hospice owners: private equity firms.
That rapid growth has many hospice veterans worried that the original hospice vision may be fading, as those capital investment companies’ demand for return on investment and the debt load they force hospices to bear are hurting patients and their families.
“Many of these transactions are driven by the motive of a quick profit,” said Dr. Joan Teno, an adjunct professor at Brown University School of Public Health, whose work has focused on end-of-life care. “I’m very concerned that you’re harming not only the dying patient, but the family whose memory will be of a loved one suffering because they didn’t get adequate care.”
According to a 2021 analysis, the number of hospice agencies owned by private equity firms soared from 106 in 2011 to 409 in 2019, out of a total of 5,615 hospices. Over that time, 72% of hospices acquired by private equity were nonprofits. And those trends have only accelerated into 2022.
Hospice is an easy business to start, with most care provided at home and using lower-cost health workers. That all …