Bayada Home Health Care buys competitor

Bayada Home Health Care has bought competitor Nursefinders Home Care for $9.65 million, adding 16 locations in nine states and $50 million in annual revenue, the Moorestown company said Monday.

The deal will boost Bayada's total annual revenue to $750 million, said Bayada president Mark Baiada,  who founded the company in 1975, with most of the expansion coming from internal growth rather than acquisitions.

"We've been doubling every five years since we started," Baiada said in an interview.

Bayada, among the largest players in its industry with 17,000 employees and 240 offices in 24 states, has benefited from the long-term aging of the U.S. population. It has also expanded to offer homehealth services for infants and children.

Seller AMN Health Services Inc. of San Diego, a healthcare staffing firm, paid $59.5 million in September 2010 for Nursefinders Inc.'s parent company, whose main business provided travel nursing and other clinical services.

AMN decided to sell the home-care segment because of "significant reimbursement changes and the current uncertainty in the regulatory environment," Susan R. Salka, AMN's CEO, said in a statement. In September, AMN wrote off $25 million in goodwill related to the homehealth-care business.

The home-health industry relies heavily on government insurance programs. Bayada gets 50 percent of its revenue from Medicaid and 15 percent from Medicare, Baiada said.

Medicare rates are down 2.4 percent this year, following a 5.2 percent cut last year, according to a recent investor presentation by a publicly traded Bayada competitor, Amedisys Inc.

Contact staff writer Harold Brubaker at 215-854-4651 or hbrubaker@phillynews.com.