Baptist Health’s expansion of its home health footprint in Kentucky, in partnership with Alternate Solutions Health Network (ASHN), signals a strategic push deeper into community- and home-based care. Under the arrangement, Baptist Health Home Care is extending services across Kentucky, southern Indiana, and southern Illinois. ASHN already has joint venture agreements with more than 60 home health and hospice providers across six states, giving it extensive experience in the field. Clinical infrastructure and scale make Baptist Health and ASHN logical partners.
The venture, owned by both Baptist Health and ASHN, will operate as Baptist Health Home Care. That branding allows Baptist Health to maintain its patient and provider identity even as ASHN supports the “behind-the-scenes” operations. Baptist Health will be able to deliver more care outside its facilities and into patients’ homes, neighborhoods, and community settings. Another benefit of the plan is the potential to reduce hospital readmissions while deepening relationships with patients and referring physicians.
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In a commentary in Becker’s Hospital Review, Rick Carrico, Baptist Health’s chief financial officer, described home health as a positive extension for the organization. The partnership aligns with Baptist Health’s broader goals of efficiency and high-quality care, leaning on advanced technologies to ensure timely responses and interventions through monitoring patients at home.
“We feel like the extending of post-acute services is a natural lane for us to be in,” Carrico said. “We appreciate the fact that we found a partner to help us navigate some of the key opportunities there, as well as the challenges.”
ASHN, headquartered in Kettering, Ohio, sees the collaboration as building on a platform already laid by Baptist Health. “As we partner together, we are not just building a brighter future, we are building on a foundation of unwavering dedication to the health and well-being of these cherished communities,” said Everett Neal, president of ASHN.
Demand for home-based care is growing rapidly in Kentucky and nationwide. The trend is driven by demographic shifts, patient preference, and reimbursement incentives. An aging population with chronic conditions and post-hospital care needs is well suited to home settings, and more patients say they prefer recovery or chronic care at home rather than in institutions. Health systems are likewise shifting toward value-based care and risk models that can reduce costly hospital readmissions. Payers such as Medicare increasingly back models that support home-based and community-based services over hospital-centered models. Technology — including remote monitoring, telehealth, care coordination platforms, and predictive analytics — plays a central role in enabling these models.
Home Health Care News reported that the venture could involve up to 600 employees, some transferred from within Baptist Health’s system and others newly hired for the home care operations.
Baptist Health’s home care services are Medicare- and Medicaid-certified, Joint Commission-accredited, and offer a full range of skilled care services.
“The collaboration supports opportunities in roles such as nurses, therapists, social workers, aides, and clinical managers as demand for home care grows with the population,” said Isaac Myers, chief health integration officer of Baptist Health. That staffing list can also include home health aides with support staff, care coordinators, case managers, and administrative and back-office employees for scheduling, billing, training, and quality assurance.
“Technology will also play an important role,” Myers added, “with at-home patient monitoring helping patients stay on the right path to recovery and enabling care teams to respond quickly when needs arise.”
An American Medical Association publication noted that Baptist Health’s home health caregivers have been delivering about 45,000 home care visits a year in recent years, including nursing, therapy, speech, and social-work services — suggesting a mature home care base already exists.
Why did Baptist Health not simply grow its home health operations alone? The decision to partner with ASHN points to several strategic rationales. ASHN’s experience running home health and hospice programs and its institutional knowledge can smooth scaling. Growth in the home health field requires capital, compliance expertise, regulatory navigation, and management of reimbursement risk. Partnering allows Baptist Health to share risk and investment while accelerating market entry.
Baptist Health’s home care service page on its website emphasizes that its in-home offerings are Medicare- and Medicaid-certified, Joint Commission-accredited, and include the full slate of skilled services previously mentioned. That indicates the joint venture is not starting from scratch but is aimed at expansion and modernization.
Statewide, Kentucky’s home health and home-based care sector is growing in response to demand but still faces gaps in access, funding, and workforce. Coverage is uneven, and many rural areas are underserved. In 2023, Gov. Andy Beshear raised Medicaid reimbursement rates for home- and community-based services to help providers cope with inflation and staffing challenges, according to Kentucky Health News. The waiting list for Kentucky’s subsidized home-based care remains large, and matching supply with demand is more complex in rural areas — some rural health departments have exited home-health care altogether.
Nevertheless, Kentucky’s home health landscape is improving with program expansion and state support, but it remains far from meeting growing demand in rural and underserved counties, and quality varies across the Commonwealth.