Healthcare · Profile from Healthcare Research Companion
Amedisys, Inc.
The Baton Rouge home health and hospice company founded by a nurse in 1982 that rode Medicare's home health payment system to national scale, was nearly broken by a therapy-billing scandal and a $150m False Claims Act settlement, rebuilt itself under a former Humana strategist as a quality-focused home health, hospice and hospital-at-home operator, and in 2025, after a bidding war and a two-year antitrust fight, became part of UnitedHealth Group's Optum. Its story is the business of home-based care in miniature: Medicare sets the price, referrals set the volume, nurses set the capacity, and the government decides how much gaming it will tolerate.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1982, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Founders
- William F. "Bill" Borne, a registered nurse, with co-founder William Matt Hession (reported)
- Headquarters
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana (large operations in Nashville, Tennessee, after 2015)
- Ownership / structure
- Wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (Optum Health) since August 14, 2025; previously public on Nasdaq as AMED (traded from 1994 after a 1993 reverse merger)
- Leadership (2026)
- Run inside Optum's home and community care business; last public-company CEO Richard Ashworth (April 2023–2025); Paul Kusserow (CEO 2014–2022, interim 2022–23, then chairman) (verify current Optum-era leadership)
- Segment and buyer
- Post-acute provider: home health, hospice and "high acuity care" (hospital-at-home and skilled-nursing-at-home via Contessa). Main payer is Medicare (fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage); also Medicaid and commercial plans
- Scale
- 2024: ~$2.35bn net service revenue; ~19,000 employees; ~519 care centres in 38 states and DC; ~499,000 patients and ~10.7m visits a year (company filings, reported)
- Capital / price
- Acquired by UnitedHealth for $101 per share in cash, ~$3.3bn equity value (agreed June 26, 2023; closed August 14, 2025) after Optum broke up an all-stock merger with Option Care Health; 164 locations in 19 states (~$528m revenue) divested to BrightSpring and Pennant
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding and Medicare home health growth (1982–2000s); TLC Health Care and the acquisition spree (2008–11); therapy-threshold scandal, Senate Finance report and $150m DOJ settlement (2010–14); Kusserow turnaround (2014–21); hospice scale-up through Compassionate Care and AseraCare (2019–20); Contessa hospital-at-home (2021); collapsed Option Care merger (2023); sale to UnitedHealth/Optum with DOJ-forced divestitures (2023–25)
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1982
Founding and Medicare Home Health Growth
Founding / business model
2008
TLC Health Care and Acquisition Spree
Acquisition (programme of acquisitions)
2010
Therapy Threshold Scandal and DOJ Settlement
Regulatory settlement (and the conduct and investigation that led to it)
2014
Kusserow Turnaround
Restructuring / leadership change
2019
Hospice Scale Up Compassionate Care and AseraCare
Acquisition (two large hospice deals)
2021
Contessa Hospital at Home
Acquisition / new business line
2023
Option Care Merger Collapse
Merger (agreed, then terminated for a superior bid)
2023
UnitedHealth Optum Sale and Divestitures
Acquisition (as target) / antitrust settlement