Northwestern Sells Hospice, Home Health Offerings To JourneyCare

GLENVIEW, IL — JourneyCare has purchased the home health care and hospice operations of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. JourneyCare is a Glenview-based nonprofit that became the largest hospice care provider in Illinois when Midwest Palliative and Hospice CareCenter merged with Horizon Hospice and Palliative Care and JourneyCare in 2015. Northwestern Memorial Health Care is the parent company of Northwestern Medicine, which is affiliated with Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

"Both organizations are mission-driven and committed to serve the community as non-profit providers," said Sarah Boburka, JourneyCare’s president and CEO in a release announcing the purchase. "This is the right thing for patients and the community at large, giving more access and more specialized healthcare options to improve overall quality of life."

The purchase of Northwestern's home health care and hospice services "significantly grows JourneyCare's service capacity" in DeKalb, DuPage and Kane counties, according to the release. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Due to an aging population and the rise of chronic illnesses, increasingly there is greater demand and consumer preference to remain independent at home," Boburka said. "This is a tremendous opportunity for us to provide more services to support people living well in the community."

JourneyCare adds home health care to its "expanding family" of services, including palliative care, care management, grief support and other offerings, according to the release. The company already had a "strategic partnership" with Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital and Centegra Health System, which completed a merger with Northwestern Medicine last September.

Last year a record-high percentage of Medicare beneficiaries were receiving hospice care at the time of their death, and the rate of hospice acquisitions is up this year and private equity companies are increasingly interested in the sector, Hospice News reported. But home health care has slowed transactions have slowed, according to the report, due to uncertainty about rule changes to the way reimbursement payments are calculated aimed at cutting down on incentives to provide unnecessary care.