BHA of Greater Philadelphia closes Monday

Amid growing competition from national for-profit organizations and large Philadelphia health systems, the nonprofit Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia is closing Monday after 138 years of caring for patients in their homes, often during end of life.

The Visiting Nurse Association became part of the Philadelphia Public Health Management Corporation, a large provider of health and human services, in 2022 after losing money in three of the previous four years. But the move was not enough to save the organization, which employed 114 people, when it filed notice of closure with government regulators.

“This difficult decision to discontinue VNA’s hospice and home health programs was made as a result of ongoing and unsustainable losses,” PHMC said in a statement. PHMC blamed consolidation but did not respond to questions about specific examples of deals that made it difficult for VNA to compete.

Private equity firms are active in the home care and hospice markets in the Philadelphia region. Large private equity firms such as Bain Capital, Madison Dearborn Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners are among those whose firms compete with VNA.

Large non-profit organization health systems such as Jefferson Health and the University of Pennsylvania Health System also see home care is becoming increasingly important. Insurers want healthcare providers must take more responsibility for their patients’ outcomes.

Jefferson merged its home care and hospice business with Bayada, a Moorestown-based nonprofit that is one of the nation’s largest home care companies, in a deal worth $31.7 million for Jefferson.

Main Line Health has a home health and hospice business with revenue of $76 million for the year ended June 30, 2023, down from $62 million five years earlier, according to tax form 990. VNA’s revenue, by contrast, fell to $18 million from $32 million in the same period.