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Encompass Health (EHC) Buys Frontier, Boosts Home Health Services

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Encompass Health Corporation (EHC - Free Report) completed the purchase of home health and hospice assets of Frontier Home Health and Hospice. The company inked a deal to acquire the assets in April 2021.

With the move, nine home health and 11 hospice locations will be included in Encompass Health’s network. This takes the company’s home health and hospice locations to 250 and 93, respectively.

Consequently, the acquisition is likely to bolster Encompass Health’s nationwide footprint. It will penetrate the Alaska, Montana and Washington markets for the first time. At the same time, the company’s strong presence across Colorado and Wyoming markets will further bolster.

With Frontier’s inclusion in its network, Encompass Health will be able to offer enhanced healthcare services across its operations. This is expected to bring about improved health outcomes for patients.

Notably, the healthcare provider has been offering high-quality home health and hospice services throughout the United States for quite some time. Through buying home health and hospice agencies, it intends to delve deeper into areas grappling with inaccessibility to quality care.

Across the nation, it boasts of being the fourth largest provider of Medicare-certified skilled home health services. On the basis of Medicare reimbursements, Encompass Health is counted within the leading 10 U.S. hospice providers.

Despite the well-earned reputation, the company is looking for options of divesting its Home Health and Hospice business. Though no final decision has been arrived at yet, the spin-off is likely to intensify the company’s focus on boosting core business growth — inpatient rehabilitation.

Its Inpatient Rehabilitation segment has been performing well on higher demand for inpatient rehabilitation services across several U.S. states. Apart from getting proper treatment and medications at hospitals, well-devised rehabilitative care helps patients to ensure a speedy recovery.

Time and again, Encompass Health has collaborated with renowned healthcare systems to address the healthcare needs of the nation. Through the initiatives, the company inaugurated hospitals or added beds to its existing facilities.

Zacks Rank & Price Performance

Shares of this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) healthcare provider have gained 16.6% over a year compared with the industry’s growth of 5.8%.

 

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Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks in the medical space are Select Medical Holdings Corporation (SEM - Free Report) , Tenet Healthcare Corporation (THC - Free Report) and HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA - Free Report) , each currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Select Medical, Tenet Healthcare and HCA Healthcare delivered trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 245.91%, 106.38% and 67.08%, on average, respectively.

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