‘Much Bigger Opportunity’: BrightSpring Enters The Public Market With Ambitious Growth Goals – GWC Mag

Of late, it hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows for home-based care providers after hitting the public market.

BrightSpring Health Services (Nasdaq: BTSG), however, is trying to buck that trend.

“We have strategically positioned BrightSpring to be a major player in the areas of greatest need in health care and in some of the most exciting growth markets within health care services,” BrightSpring CEO Jon Rousseau said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday. “I am confident that, in each of these markets, BrightSpring will be among the long-term winners.”

BrightSpring Health Services is a Louisville, Kentucky-based provider of home- and community-based services (HCBS). The company serves complex populations that require specialized or chronic care.

As BrightSpring continues to build on its recent successes, Rousseau firmly believes that it is well positioned to be a leader in home-based care.

“There’s 5% of the population that makes up 50% of the spend in health care,” Rousseau said. “They need better solutions and have the need for multiple services. And where they’re at is in the home. Everybody needs their medications managed, everybody needs a doctor. Most people need provider services in their home. They don’t need just one service. Most providers only offer one service. We have the ability to offer a comprehensive set of care capabilities that drive better outcomes, but also to gain access to more volume and care opportunities in the organization.”

BrightSpring has two main service lines under its umbrella: pharmacy and provider services.

There’s an important overlap between those two service lines, Rousseau said.

“Every single one of our provider patients has an important medication management need and regimen,” he said. “For the majority of our provider patients we serve, we’re also providing the medication management and the pharmacy services in a more coordinated way. That’s upwards of about 35,000 additional referrals a year. That is a very unique capability set that we feel is imperative to drive value-based care type outcomes in the future.”

That’s the situation as it stands now. Over the next five or 10 years, BrightSpring hopes to capitalize on the referrals it could be taking as it continues to grow.

“As we look forward, there is a much bigger opportunity,” Rousseau said. “If we were to serve all of the services and needs that our patients have today, it would more than double the company. There are upwards of over 500,000 additional referrals a year that we could potentially be taking. That’s the goal as we continue to drive more integrated care.”

Going forward, Rousseau doesn’t want BrightSpring to offer more care because it can. It wants to leverage its home-based primary care capabilities to serve its patients in value-based models.

“That’s where we’re starting to derive more of the economic benefits for the great outcomes we produce every day,” Rousseau said.

BrightSpring’s home medication program, along with home care, has driven a 73% reduction in hospitalizations, it says.

In terms of growth, the company plans to be very aggressive and acquisitive in the next year. In fact, Rousseau called its pipeline “as large and attractive as ever.”

“Many folks want to sell to our company,” he said. “They look at us as a winner in the future of health care and a long-term home. So we have tremendous access. Our pipeline has 100 potential deals in it at any point in time. We’re very measured and deliberate about the deals we do. We have several deals we would expect to close in the March and April timeframe.”

BrightSpring officially announced the move to go public in January.

In Q4 of 2023, provider revenue increased year over year by $25 million — or 4.4% — to $589 million.

Total revenue for the company was a reported $2.4 billion, a 22.1% increase year over year.