Bon Secours Mercy Health's home health and hospice care division will join forces with national home health provider Compassus as part of a newly signed partnership.
The home health and hospice program will now be renamed Bon Secours Home Care and Hospice by Compassus.
Prior to the merger, Bon Secours was the fifth largest Catholic health system in the nation. The faith-based, nonprofit organization has operated in Richmond and the Hampton Roads region for more than 40 years. The merger will also affect BSMH locations in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and South Carolina.
Compassus is a Tennessee-based health care provider managed by private equity firm Tower Brook Capital Partners. In 2019, Compassus merged with Ascension, the largest nonprofit Catholic home health care provider in the United States at the time.
Bon Secours' mission includes “alleviating human suffering and bringing soundness of mind to people in the midst of pain and loss.” Founded with the help of an endowment established in 1982, Richmond Hospice is the area's only faith-based, nonprofit hospice program.
Bon Secours Chief Operating Officer Don Klein said he hopes the new partnership will help expand home health care services throughout the region.
“We recognize the changing health care environment and the increasing number of patients seeking flexible care options, including in-home care,” Klein said. “Bon Secours Mercy Health is proud to offer comprehensive care to patients and their families at every stage of life.”
Hospice care is an effort to provide care and relief for the dying, and began as a service provided through churches and local residents.
Marcia Tetterton, executive director of the Virginia Home Care and Hospice Association, said the past 15 years have seen a “tremendous amount of consolidation” across Virginia.
“This isn't just something that's happening in the Richmond area,” Tetterton said. “Hospitals will likely have some sort of joint merger or some sort of management agreement with an organization that has a large national footprint, like Compassus.”
She added that the “jury is still out” on whether the affiliation will affect the quality of care, but stressed that the hospital's financial health is important to providing consistent, reliable care.
“If you don't have the capacity, you don't have the mission,” Tetterton said.
By 2030, nearly a quarter of Virginians will be over 60, according to the Virginia Department of Aging and Rehabilitation Services. About 40,000 patients received hospice care in the state last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
