Two hospital-at-home providers announced their intention to merge on Tuesday, declaring that the deal will create the market’s most comprehensive platform for delivering high-acuity care at home.

Denver-based DispatchHealth plans to acquire Boston-based Medically Home. Once combined, the company will provide in-home care across 50 major metropolitan areas and partner with nearly 40 health systems.

DispatchHealth, founded in 2013, delivers in-home urgent and acute care by deploying medical teams directly into patients’ homes. It has a tech platform that enables diagnostics and treatment, as well as coordination with health systems, payers and primary care providers.

Medically Home was founded in 2016. The company provides hospitals with a technology and services platform that allows clinicians to treat a range of conditions in patients’ homes, including high acuity conditions that are traditionally treated in hospital settings, such as heart failure, pneumonia and cancer.

DispatchHealth CEO Jennifer Webster called Medically Home a “true pioneer” in the hospital-at-home industry in an email sent to MedCity News. She also noted that Medically Home works with some of the largest and most respected health systems in the country, including Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and Cleveland Clinic.

“What set [Medically Home] apart is the depth of their capabilities — their technology, logistics and support services are unmatched in making hospital-level care possible outside of a hospital’s four walls. More importantly, they share our mission-driven focus: putting patients first, and providing high-quality care that supports our partners’ goals as well. That alignment made this combination an easy decision,” Webster stated.

This merger brings both entities’ technology, logistical workflows and clinical expertise under one roof, which will allow the company to “expand in-home high-acuity care far beyond where it is today,” she added.

The combined entity will deliver a range of services, spanning from same-day triages for serious health concerns to complex hospital-level care in patients’ homes. 

Once it completes its acquisition on Medically Home, DispatchHealth is poised to free up more than 62,000 hospital bed days per year, the company said.

Webster also noted that this acquisition will help DispatchHealth create a new standard in risk-sharing arrangements, including health systems, payers and high-risk patients in value-based care models.

The news of DispatchHealth’s acquisition comes as the long-term future of the federal hospital-at-home program remains uncertain. This month, Congress extended the program — which allows Medicare-certified hospitals to provide inpatient-level care in patients’ homes — but only for another six months.

Pippa Shulman, Medically Home’s chief medical officer and chief strategy officer, told MedCity News that a long-term extension would be an important step to improve the availability of hospital-at-home care.

She noted that while her company and DispatchHealth both deliver at-home care independent of the extended waiver, they are hopeful that a favorable long-term decision will be made once the waiver expires in September.
“The data is clear — patients receiving hospital-level care at home experience fewer complications, better outcomes and higher satisfaction rates, both for themselves and their caregivers. At the same time, hospital-at-home care eases hospital capacity constraints and reduces healthcare costs. With an aging population and growing demand for high complexity care where patients are more comfortable, their homes, this merger makes a lot of sense,” Shulman stated.

The deal is expected to close around mid-2025, and its financial terms are not being disclosed.

Photo: Kritchanut, Getty Images