The joint venture between Compassus and not-for-profit health system Providence is set to expand through two key growth tactics.
The organizations are seeking to expand the joint venture’s census of patients coming from the Providence ecosystem while extending its community-based referral sources, Nick Gordon, senior vice president of strategic execution at Compassus, told Home Health Care News.
For the first pillar, the joint venture aims to expand through multiple sources within Providence, including case management, discharge planning, hospital-based clinicians and Providence’s ambulatory environment. This part of the growth strategy requires close integration and collaboration with case management and other elements of acute care, Gordon said.
“We want to make sure that the JV staff, our clinical liaisons, our clinicians and our administrative teams are really tightly connected, because often what we find in the hospital is process gaps that lead to people not experiencing home health or hospice or other services,” he said. “Either the information doesn’t get transferred efficiently, or the insurance authorizations don’t take place efficiently, or the health systems are under a lot of pressure to move patients through discharge. … So really, our growth strategy there is to build a very tight, integrated collaborative process so we can move quickly and be highly responsive when a patient needs to be discharged to our care.”
Its second growth strategy looks outside of the Providence ecosystem for referrals, whether from long-term care facilities, skilled nursing facilities or physicians working directly with patients.
“One of the things that we are investing in together and building out together with Providence as part of this joint venture, is adding people to go out, build relationships and interface with those community-based clinicians who are interacting with patients and may be able to refer them to these services that we can provide through the JV,” Gordon said.
Brentwood, Tennessee-based Compassus provides home health, home infusion, palliative and hospice services, among other in-home offerings. The Towerbrook Capital Partners-backed company employs over 8,000 people and operates more than 280 locations.
The joint venture itself is still in a transition phase. Compassus signed an agreement to form Providence at Home with Compassus in 2024 and its employees are still transitioning from one employment model to another, Gordon said.
“Right now, the focus is on stability for the caregivers, a clean transition for them and stability for the patient census that we’re inheriting and serving,” he said. “Then part of our partnership with a system like Providence is each year building a budget, a strategic plan, a growth plan, together with the governance model that we have with Providence for the subsequent year. We’re just really starting into that process for 2026, and haven’t aligned on targets yet.”
While currently prioritizing a smooth transition for caregivers and stabilizing its current scope, Compassus plans to expand with an eye toward a complete continuum of integrated care. For example, Compassus “would love to” work with Providence to add home health services to its hospice offerings in Texas.
Growing the joint venture is a key lever to improve access to affordable, desirable in-home services, Gordon said.
“Our motivation is [to offer care to] all the people who are currently not able to experience this side of care,” he said. “We believe probably on the order of up to half of the people who might benefit from hospital health just aren’t getting that experience now, so there’s a lot of room for growth and providing more care without even talking about the competitive environment.”
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