Addus HomeCare Corporation (Nasdaq: ADUS) is actively pursuing acquisitions of size – and does not anticipate any impact to its growth strategy from the recently-announced moratorium on home health Medicare enrollment.
As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) new moratoria affect only home health and hospice, Addus’ personal care services segment is not implicated, and the company’s home health segment’s growth strategy will be similarly unaffected, according to Dirk Allison, chairman of the board and CEO of Addus.
“We are not a de novo company,” Allison said at the RBC Capital Markets 2026 Global Healthcare Conference. “It’s been easier on the PCS side to buy the small operations. On the clinical side, we’ve not really participated in de novo growth, it’s always been M&A and pure organic growth. So I think from that standpoint, the moratorium has no effect on us.”
Allison’s prediction echoes statements made by Aveanna CEO Jeff Shaner, who said the company would feel “zero impact” from the home health moratorium. Other providers have stated that the enrollment freeze and could reduce access to care.
Addus HomeCare primarily provides personal care services, as well as hospice and home health offerings. The company operates in 263 locations across 24 states, serving approximately 62,750 patients and consumers.
Potential home health acquisitions should not be affected as long as the target company qualifies under the 36-month rule, Allison said. He predicts that the moratorium will have little effect on valuations.
Allison described CMS’ targeting of fraud, waste and abuse as beneficial to Addus and other large providers that spend millions of dollars annually on compliance efforts. Increased program integrity efforts will also pay off in payer negotiations, Allison predicted, because payers do not want to get involved with an out-of-compliance provider, making companies with large compliance programs more attractive.
Acquisition pipeline
Doubling down on comments made during the company’s Q1 earnings call, Allison said that Addus had several deals in its pipeline, including one or two deals, mainly personal care services-focused, that would be “very comparable” to the company’s $350 million acquisition of Gentiva’s personal care assets.
“We’ve been … keeping our balance sheet clean, so if another type of Gentiva acquisition came up, we can do it very quickly and easily on an all-cash basis, through our line of credit,” Allison said. We think we will be discussing with people the potential of Addus being an acquirer. If you think about it, there are other acquirers, there are PE firms, but there’s just not a lot of large [personal care services] (PCS) companies out there that have the capacity with their debt coverage today, or their debt load today – not a lot of them can go out and do these bigger deals at this point in time.”
Addus’ most recent deal was its acquisition of Indiana-based HomeCourt Home Care. The company has also entered into a definitive purchase agreement with a similarly-sized personal care provider in Indiana.
Valuations have dipped since Addus’ acquisition of Gentiva assets, according to Allison. The CEO said that the Gentiva deal had a valuation of around 11 to 11.5, while deals made today will likely be sub-double digits.
“Because our stock has come down, and we’re probably, from a PCS standpoint, we’re the largest public company out there who does the type of business we do, which is agency business,” Allison said. “People have to look at our multiple, and you know we’re trading at under the double digits today. So I think that kind of leads to the valuation coming down a bit.”