Anthem To Acquire Aspire Health

Business Wire

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM) today announced that the company has entered into an agreement to acquire Aspire Health, the nation’s largest non-hospice, community-based palliative care provider.

“Anthem is focused on enhancing our ability to offer innovative, integrated clinical care models that can improve the quality of healthcare and deliver better outcomes,” said Gail K. Boudreaux, President and CEO, Anthem. “Aspire Health shares our perspective on the increasingly important role of integrated care and has built a unique model that provides palliative care and support services for patients and their families. With the addition of Aspire Health to Anthem’s other clinical care assets such as CareMore Health and AIM, we will be able to offer our consumers, customers, and other health plan and provider partners a broader array of programs and services that meet their diverse needs and drive future growth opportunities for our company.”

Aspire currently provides services under contracts with more than 20 health plans to consumers in 25 states. The company uses proprietary predictive clinical and claims-based patient algorithms to identify patients with a serious illness who may benefit from an extra layer of support. Once patients are identified, Aspire assigns a comprehensive care team that includes physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and chaplains. The team works in an integrated approach to address symptom management, patient-family communication, advance care planning and to coordinate care with other medical professionals including primary care, specialty care and in-home care providers. The company also offers 24-7 support to patients, including nurse practitioner home visits any time if necessary.

Aspire was founded in 2013 by former U.S. Senator and physician William Frist and Brad Smith, who serves as Chief Executive Officer of the company.

“Several studies have repeatedly demonstrated how advanced illness programs can provide high patient and family satisfaction, reduce hospitalization, and decrease costs,” said Smith. “As part of Anthem, we believe we will be able to further scale our model and positively impact the lives of even more consumers and families, making home-based advanced illness care available to patients who need it.”

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018 and is subject to standard closing conditions and customary approvals required under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. The transaction is expected to be neutral to earnings in 2018 and accretive to earnings in 2019.

About Anthem, Inc.

Anthem is working to transform health care with trusted and caring solutions. Our health plan companies deliver quality products and services that give their members access to the care they need. With over 74 million people served by its affiliated companies, including nearly 40 million within its family of health plans, Anthem is one of the nation’s leading health benefits companies. For more information about Anthem’s family of companies, please visit www.antheminc.com/companies.

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