Enhabit Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Enhabit EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.10
• Consensus EPS: $0.07
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Enhabit Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $259.90 million
• Expected Revenue: $266.11 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$6.21 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Enhabit Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/7/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Enhabit (NYSE:EHAB) is a leading healthcare provider that offers Medicare-certified skilled home health and hospice services in the United States. The company operates in two segments: Home Health and Hospice, providing services to adult patients needing care, including skilled nursing, physical, occupational, and speech therapy, medical social work, and home health aide services. Enhabit's hospice services include in-home services to terminally ill patients and their families to address patients' physical needs, including pain control and symptom management, and emotional and spiritual support.

Enhabit operates home health agencies in approximately 34 states, with a concentration in the southern half of the United States. As of March 31, 2022, Enhabit operates in 252 home health agencies and 99 hospice agencies across 34 states. Enhabit provides practices to treat chronic diseases and conditions, including diabetes, arthritis, hypertension,  Alzheimer's disease, spinal stenosis, low vision,  Parkinson's disease, complex wound care, osteoporosis, and chronic pain, along with disease-specific plans for patients with diabetes, post-orthopedic surgery or injury, congestive heart failure,  and respiratory diseases.

Enhabit started as HealthSouth, founded in 1984 by Beam Scrushy and Richard Scrushy. In the early 2000s, the company restructured and rebranded into Encompass Health after being caught up in an accounting scandal. In Q2 of 2022, Enhabit, the healthcare and hospice division, became an independent public company, having completed its spinoff from Encompass Health Corporation. 

Barb Jacobsmeyer was named President and CEO of Enhabit Home Health & Hospice in June 2021. Jacobsmeyer came to Enhabit from Encompass Health, where she served as the company's executive vice president of operations. 

In Q3 of 2022, Enhabit, Inc. announced the acquisition of Caring Hearts Hospice, a locally-owned hospice agency in Texas. The acquisition adds four hospice locations in Texas to Enhabit's existing presence in the state. Ehnabit continues to expand, setting aside approximately one hundred million dollars to fund future mergers and acquisitions. 

Enhabit, Inc. is committed to providing high-quality care and service to patients and their families, and its success is a testament to its dedicated team of healthcare professionals. Enhabit is well-positioned to meet the growing demand for healthcare services in the United States as a leading home health and hospice service provider. With its focus on patient care and commitment to excellence, Enhabit is poised to continue to grow and succeed in the years ahead.

Enhabit's commitment to quality care has not gone unnoticed, as they have received numerous awards and recognitions for their services. In 2021, they were named a HomeCare Elite Top Agency for the 15th year. This recognition is given to the top-performing home health agencies in the United States. They have also received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for their home health services, indicating their high quality and patient satisfaction.

Enhabit's success can be attributed to its skilled and compassionate staff and dedication to providing comprehensive and individualized patient care. Enhabit also recognizes the importance of emotional and spiritual support for their patients and their families, particularly in hospice care. Their hospice services include pain and symptom management, spiritual counseling, palliative and dietary counseling, social worker visits, and bereavement counseling services to meet terminally ill patients and their families' individual physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychosocial needs.

Enhabit Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Home Health returned to sequential profitability with segment EBITDA up 7.9% quarter-over-quarter, driving a 3.7% increase in average daily census and a 6.7% reduction in visits per episode.
• Hospice admissions rose 8% year-over-year and average daily census climbed 12.3%, while referrals-to-admission conversion improved by 310 basis points and cost per patient day fell by 0.8% year-over-year.
• Payer innovation contracts now comprise 44% of non-Medicare home health visits (up from 30%), lifting non-Medicare revenue per visit by 7.6% year-over-year.
• Operational efficiencies—outsourced coding and branch consolidations—are set to save approximately $1.5 million in 2025, and two pilot apps aim to boost clinician-patient and referral-to-admission workflows.
• The company generated $17 million in free cash flow, reduced bank debt by $25 million to reach a 4.4x leverage ratio below covenant and reaffirmed full-year 2025 guidance.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Inhabit Home Health and Hospice First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I'd like to inform all participants that their lines will be in a listen only mode. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer period. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up question.

[Operator]

Today's conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Joby Williams, NHAVIT's Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Mr. Williams, please go ahead.

[Jobie Williams, SVP of Strategic Finance & Treasurer at Enhabit]

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. With me on the call is Barb Jacobsmeyer, President and Chief Executive Officer and Ryan Solomon, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, if you do not already have a copy of the first quarter earnings release, supplemental information and related Form eight ks filed with the SEC are available on our website at investors.ehab.com. On Page two of the supplemental information, you will find the Safe Harbor statements, which are also set forth on the last page of the earnings release.

[Jobie Williams, SVP of Strategic Finance & Treasurer at Enhabit]

During the call, we will make forward looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. Certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our projections, estimates and expectations are discussed in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10 ks, which are available on our website. We encourage you to read them. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the estimates, projections, guidance and other forward looking information presented, which are based on current estimates of future events and speak only as of today. We do not undertake a duty to update these forward looking statements.

[Jobie Williams, SVP of Strategic Finance & Treasurer at Enhabit]

Our supplemental information and discussion on this call will include certain non GAAP financial measures. For such measures, reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available at the end of the supplemental information and the earnings release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Barb.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Thanks, Jody. Good morning and thanks for joining us. In our year end earnings call, I outlined how executing on twenty twenty four strategies laid a promising foundation for 2025 success. Our team has done a tremendous job in the first quarter building on that foundation. Our first quarter home health performance is a result of executing on our payer contract initiative.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

We started 2025 in a stronger position with our payer contracts and were able to fully focus on growth. Our admissions from quarter four to quarter one increased by 8.1% with fee for service also growing 4% sequentially. Our year over year admission growth was up 0.7%. When normalized for leap year and the impact of our closed branches, growth is 2.5%. Our total home health census was down 2.4% year over year due to a low entry point in January.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Sequentially, total census was up 3.7%. Census growth occurred each month in quarter one, exiting March at an average daily census 9.8% higher than January. Our non Medicare admissions were up 7.4% year over year, mainly driven by our payer innovation contracts. We increased the percentage of home health visits and payer innovation contracts. In the first quarter of twenty twenty four, '30 '8 percent of non Medicare visits were in payer innovation contracts.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

That rate grew to 44% in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Payer mix progress to payer innovation contracts resulted in a 7.6% improvement year over year in non Medicare revenue per visit. A Just Right Care plan for our patients continues to be an area of focus. With over two thirds of our payer innovation contracts and episodic arrangements, managing our visits per episode while maintaining high quality outcomes is an important part of our strategy. Total visits per episode declined 6.7% from 14.9 in quarter one of twenty twenty four to 13.9 in quarter one twenty twenty five.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Continued progress with managing BPE creates additional clinical capacity as evidenced by our decrease in cost per day year over year and sequentially. Moving now to our hospice segment. The sequential monthly census growth that started in January 2024 has continued throughout the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Total admissions grew 8% year over year with same store up 5.2%. Census grew 12.3% with 10.6% same store growth.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Our admission departments continue to focus on timely responses to our referral sources, driving a three ten basis point improvement year over year in referrals to admission conversion. Census growth continues to create leverage on the fixed costs we added in 2023, resulting in a cost per day decrease of 0.8 year over year and a 2.7% decline sequentially. To complement our organic growth strategy, our de novo strategy is positively impacting total growth. In quarter one, we opened one hospice location and have 13 projects underway. Turning now to our cost structure strategy update.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

As anticipated, we completed the transition of all branches to the outsourced coding resource in the first quarter, which we estimate will deliver $1,500,000 in cost savings for the remainder of 2025. Additionally, seven branches were closed or consolidated in the first quarter and four remain on track to be closed by the end of quarter two twenty twenty five. We continue to focus on new technologies targeted at improving efficiency, productivity, and cost reduction. We are currently piloting two internally developed apps. One of these is designed to improve clinician and patient communication related to scheduled visits.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

The other is designed to improve communication between our business development and operation team members regarding patient referral to admission, process, and status. On the human capital front, we just completed our annual employee engagement survey with results above the health care benchmark. There were two drivers to our engagement success. Our employees finding their work meaningful and collaborating with colleagues to deliver quality outcomes for our patients. Survey results are critical feedback to help focus management on priorities identified by our staff as important to their success and continued engagement.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

We are proud of our Inhabit culture and the impact it has on our team and on our patients and their families. And now I will turn it

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

over to Ryan, who will cover the financial results of quarter one.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Thanks Barb. Q1 twenty twenty five financial performance delivered strong sequential growth, margin expansion and continued deleveraging of our balance sheet. Execution in the quarter on our broader 2025 strategic priorities has enabled a strong start to 2025. A few highlights before reviewing the segments include the following: Home Health performance returned the segment to sequential profitability growth in Q1, with segment EBITDA improving 7.9% sequentially, while also setting the stage for continued growth in 2025.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Opska's momentum continues to be very strong, delivering year over year segment EBITDA growth of 65% on both ADC volume growth and margin expansion in Q1. The final highlight is our Q1 twenty twenty five leverage ratio of 4.4 times. This will allow us to benefit from improved pricing under our existing agreement and provide additional flexibility as we now exit our covenant relief period restrictions under the agreement a quarter earlier than required. Shifting to our detailed Q1 consolidated results. In the first quarter, consolidated net revenue was $259,900,000 an increase sequentially of $1,700,000 or 0.7% quarter over quarter, while a decrease of $2,500,000 or 1 percent year over year.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Consolidated sequential revenue improvement reflects growth in both Home Health and Hospice segments with particular strength resulting from continued strong momentum in our Hospice segment on both average daily census volume growth and favorable unit revenue. Consolidated revenue growth in the quarter translated into improved profitability sequentially with consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $26,600,000 in the quarter, an increase sequentially of $1,500,000 or 6%, while growing to the prior year by $1,300,000 or 5.1%, with overall EBITDA margin as a percentage of revenue coming in at 10.2%, an increase of 60 basis points to the prior year. Now shifting to our Home Health segment, performance for Q1. Revenue came in at $200,600,000 an increase of $200,000 or 0.1%. Volumes were up sequentially with a 3.7% increase in average daily census, somewhat muted by fewer calendar days in the quarter, leading to overall patient day volume growth of 1.4%.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

We saw growth in all payer types sequentially with outsized growth in non episodic volumes in the quarter as we saw the benefit of a key national contract signed in December 2024. The growth in average daily census in the quarter allowed us to deliver a cost per patient day improvement of 3.1% sequentially as we were able to improve clinical staff productivity on the additional volume. Home Health adjusted EBITDA totaled $38,300,000 in Q1, reflecting a sequential increase of $2,800,000 or 7.9%. The breakdown of the $2,800,000 of sequential improvement reflects $1,300,000 related to volume, yield favorable by $1,000,000 and favorable sales ops back office and G and A related costs of 500,000.0 Q1 gross margin as a percentage of revenue came in at 48.5, an improvement sequentially of 110 basis points, as we delivered lower cost per patient day on improving clinical staff productivity as we grew volumes in the quarter. We were able to pull this gross margin expansion through to adjusted EBITDA margin, finishing the quarter at 19.1%, an improvement of 140 basis points sequentially.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

A few key items to highlight in Home Health outside of our broader revenue and adjusted EBITDA performance include: a key priority in 2025 was slowing the rate of decline in our Medicare patient volume. Our teams were successful in executing on this strategy in the quarter, with Medicare ADC improving sequentially in Q1 to 20110, an improvement of 1.5% on sequential admission growth of 4% representing back to back quarters of growth in this key metric. Combining ADC growth with our continued focus on optimizing productivity of our clinical staff and lower visits per episode allowed us to achieve a lower cost per patient day than what we saw in any quarter throughout full year 2024. Now shifting to our Hospice segment. Revenue came in at $59,300,000 reflecting strong growth both sequentially increasing $1,500,000 or 2.6% and to prior year increasing $10,100,000 or 20.5%.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Volume growth remained strong with average daily census totaling $38.09 in Q1, an improvement of 2.1% sequentially and 12.3% year over year. Q1 twenty twenty five unit revenue per patient day benefited from the reversal of aged Medicare cap liability of approximately $1,000,000 which after normalizing for this benefit in the quarter, we would have seen relatively flat unit revenue sequentially. Opsys adjusted EBITDA totaled $15,000,000 in Q1, reflecting a sequential increase of $1,700,000 or 12.8% on increased revenues combined with gross margin expansion of two sixty basis points as we saw improved unit cost per patient day on increased volume. A few key items to highlight in hospice outside of broader revenue and adjusted EBITDA performance include: hospice adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of revenue at 25.3 in Q1 reflects five straight quarters of sequential improvement and the highest adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of revenue for this segment post spin as our operational leadership continues to realize leverage benefits from average daily census growth. Growth in average daily census combined with a lower average length of stay sequentially and year over year continues to lower our overall cap liability risk.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Shifting to our home office and general and administrative expenses totaled $26,700,000 or 10.3% of revenues in Q1, a decrease of $300,000 or 1.1% year over year. This decrease reflects targeted cost savings initiatives somewhat offset by merit and other inflationary increases year over year. Transitioning now to the balance sheet and cash flow. A key strategic priority in 2025 is using free cash flow to continue to deleverage our balance sheet. In Q1, we generated approximately $17,000,000 of free cash flow, a 63.5% free cash flow conversion rate.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

During the quarter, we reduced our overall bank debt by $25,000,000 We did this through the combination of free cash flow generation and utilization of $20,000,000 in proceeds from the sale of our investment interest in Metalogics. We ended the quarter with approximately $40,000,000 in cash, a $12,000,000 sequential improvement. Additionally, liquidity increased approximately $30,000,000 sequentially to 111,000,000 Improved profitability coupled with these balance sheet improvements results in a leverage ratio now of 4.4 times, which is below our covenant of 4.5 times. Later today, we will deliver the Q1 covenant certificate to our lender group, which will effectively end the covenant relief period we entered in Q4 twenty twenty three. Since Q4 twenty twenty three, we have successfully lowered our leverage by one full turn.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

A meaningful benefit of exiting the relief period is improved pricing under our existing agreement and added flexibility around tuck in acquisitions. We remain committed to strengthening our balance sheet and improving profitability. Now let's briefly turn to guidance. Based on our consolidated first quarter results and the momentum in the business, we reaffirm our 2025 guidance. Thank you for the time today.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Operator, could you please open the line for questions?

[Operator]

Thank And

[Operator]

with our first question, this comes from the line of Brian Tanquilut from Jefferies. Your line is open.

[Brian Tanquilut, Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc]

Hi, good morning and congrats on the quarter. Barb, maybe as I think about the performance in Q1 and as we think about the United contract coming in, I mean, are you thinking about the ramp in further volume growth within the non Medicare book of business, especially as we give consideration to, in theory, volumes coming through that specific client?

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Sure. So well, I think first just to note that obviously the goal of the field is really to balance that admissions to make sure we maintain a very healthy payer mix. When we look at obviously, had negative growth year over year in Medicare. The areas that we positively grew were payer innovation and some of the other contracts outside of payer innovation. Payer innovation was 82% of that positive growth.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

So it really shows that the field is doing a good job balancing that. The focus now really is now continuing now our hiring so that we can continue to improve that average daily census and those admissions.

[Brian Tanquilut, Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc]

Got it. And then as I think about the labor profile or the labor market in the business lines that you run, how should we be thinking about kind of

[Brian Tanquilut, Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc]

like the

[Brian Tanquilut, Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc]

inflation expectation for the rest of the year?

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Sure. So we do believe that we're kind of back to that normal of that 2% to 3% from a salary market and merit. There are some markets where it is becoming a little bit more difficult and we're going to we're focusing on those at a market level to see if there's additional compensation adjustments that need to occur.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

And

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Brian, with that, I think we're also demonstrating the ability with normalized market rates to build capacity. Building on Barb's point earlier, we were able to grow our end capacity from December to March by approximately 4%. So we're really feeling good about the market normalizing and then the ability to build capacity behind that to set us up for growth through the balance of the year. Perfect. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of A. J. Rice from UBS. Your line is open.

[A.J. Rice, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Hi. Hi, everybody. First on on the hospice side, obviously, the ADC growth has been is really good there. What is that you specifically, initiatives you're putting on gaining share? Or do you think there's underlying improvement in the overall market that's somehow helping drive that?

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

I think it's combination. I mean, referrals were up in first quarter year over year about 3%. But if you recall last year we put in regional admissions departments so that we can have a very quick and timely answer to our referral sources. I do think that has helped the conversion rate. Our conversion rate was up three ten basis points.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Our conversion rate is, you know, 79. So it's nice strong conversion rate on those referrals. So I think it is a combination of the referrals, but also on some of the work that we've put into that timely response.

[A.J. Rice, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Okay. And then, maybe, obviously, one of the, areas on home health is your business per episode continues to, trend in a good direction there. Maybe flush out some of the dynamics behind that. Are the the newer contracts allowing you more flexibility on business per episode? Are there other things you're doing that are driving that?

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

The continued use of Metallitic Pulse has been the critical piece to the visit per episode, you know, really making sure that we're giving those higher number of visits to the higher acuity patients and moving visits away from patients that either have less acuity or that have progressed quicker than anticipated and really adjusting that plan of care so that those can either be moved to a new patient or to a patient of higher acuity. So it's that continued focus on the Metalogics Pulse tool at the field level.

[A.J. Rice, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Okay. Alright. Are you pretty much fully penetrated on the Metalogics just to put a finer point on that?

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Yeah. So that's in all of the branches, and we continue to, you know, work with the branch directors to make sure that it's being utilized, as intended.

[A.J. Rice, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Okay. Alright. Thanks a lot.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Langston from TD Cowen. Your line is open.

[Ryan Langston, Director & Senior Analyst - Healthcare Research at TD Cowen]

Great. Thank you. Sticking with hospice, obviously nice growth cost per patient day down 80 bps. I know you've centralized some of the operations there. I guess how much ability is left to sort of leverage those operations?

[Ryan Langston, Director & Senior Analyst - Healthcare Research at TD Cowen]

And I mean if ADC keeps growing nicely like it really has, at some point, are you going have to make sort of a step investment in those operations just to support all this new growth?

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Yes. And Ryan, good morning. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think, ultimately, as we think about that, we've done a really good job, to your point, of really creating the leverage and kind of improvement in profitability. I think as far as investment and kind of how do we think about that going forward, when we look at the margin profile, was really healthy in Q1.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

We think that we've started to kind of fully generate the leverage profile on the volume. There will be, what I'll call, minor incremental investments as we kind of go through those step function growth phases, but we wouldn't anticipate a material deviation from the margin profile that we saw really in Q4, continued into Q1. So we'll continue to monitor that, but it feels like we're in a pretty good glide slope from an overall margin profile along with the growth trajectory that we're on.

[Ryan Langston, Director & Senior Analyst - Healthcare Research at TD Cowen]

Got it. And then just obviously, the growth has been very impressive. I think it's fourteen months of straight ADC growth in hospice. I guess where are you running from a capacity and sort of productivity standpoint in terms of sort of on the ground labor? And I guess is there any reason we shouldn't sort of assume that this ADC growth won't continue through the rest of the year?

[Ryan Langston, Director & Senior Analyst - Healthcare Research at TD Cowen]

Thanks.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Well, first from a capacity standpoint that really is kind of at a branch level. We do look to make sure that we have the capacity to grow at our branches. And so because we're on this case management model, you can really start to grow into that case management model while adding additional resources, but ensuring that you have that referral flow coming in so that you can have that strong productivity that we've seen. I do think again because of the work that we've done to diversify the referral sources and the focus on the admission departments, we don't anticipate any change in our growth trajectory.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

Yes. And maybe just to build on that. So if we look at our ADC growth up year over year at 12.3%, If we look at the R and D capacity that we had exiting March year over year, we were up 16%. So to build on Barb's point, I think we're staying ahead of the curve from an overall kind of R and capacity in front of our volumes. So we feel confident that the team is executing at a really high level.

[Ryan Solomon, CFO at Enhabit]

We've got a really strong operating team in the hospice segment, we have a lot of confidence we'll continue to execute there.

[Ryan Langston, Director & Senior Analyst - Healthcare Research at TD Cowen]

That's great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Whit Mayo from Leerink Partners. Line is open.

[Whit Mayo, Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners]

Thanks. Hey, Barb, I'm just curious now that you're lapping sort of a year or two of some of the original contracts from plans on your payer innovation strategy, what the rate increases are looking like? Or do you have annual rate escalators or anything on these contracts? Is there any protection you have around keeping up with inflation? That would be helpful.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Sure. Well, we most of our contracts are two to three years in length. We do right now have 43 in our pipeline that we're working on the renegotiations. A few do have escalators. Some of them are tied to quality metrics.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

And we do bring a lot of data to show not only what has happened from an inflationary impact, but we kind of know on the flip side what Medicare Advantage has been receiving from CMS. And so we like to bring a lot of that data to the table as we work to renegotiate to move to not only better pricing, but continue to try to shift to more episodic payers.

[Whit Mayo, Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners]

Thanks. And then maybe just on research. The research just keep declining. I thought you seemed fairly confident that you had some initiatives that would start to stem some of those losses and maybe reverse itself. So just maybe some color around the recertification rates.

[Whit Mayo, Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners]

Thanks.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Sure. So we do follow how we are compared to others in our Home Care Home based system. And we still are within in line. In fact, there's a little bit of all kind of our peers in Home Care Home Based. Our focus has really been on using Metallurgic Pulse that will do a recommendation on whether the patient looks like they're in need of research.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Making sure that in the team meetings that they're discussing those patients that could benefit. But we have obviously seen as Medicare Advantage grows, even if we believe the patient needs a research, we're not always successful in getting that research. The focus has really been on growing census because ultimately that's going to be the driver, so whether that's through admissions or research. We've also put a little bit of more focus on early institutional, which does have higher revenue, but the early institutional does not have the same research potential that more of your chronic community based patients have. So we're seeing a little bit of the research impact based on the blend of the admissions we're getting.

[Whit Mayo, Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners]

Thanks.

[Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO at Enhabit]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions. I'll be turning the call back over now to Jody Williams for closing remarks.

[Jobie Williams, SVP of Strategic Finance & Treasurer at Enhabit]

If you have any additional questions, please e mail investorrelationsgehab dot com. Thank you again for joining today's call.

Participants

Executives

• Jobie Williams, SVP of Strategic Finance & Treasurer
• Barb Jacobsmeyer, President & CEO
• Ryan Solomon, CFO

Analysts

• Brian Tanquilut, Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc
• A.J. Rice, Managing Director at UBS Group
• Ryan Langston, Director & Senior Analyst - Healthcare Research at TD Cowen
• Whit Mayo, Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners