Gentiva Courting Wall Street

StrangeTony,

Gentiva executives are barnstorming Wall Street after the second year in a row of shareholders voting against the company's executive incentive compensation proposal.

May 14 - Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Health Care Conference
May 21 - Barclays High Yield Bond and Syndicated Loan Conference
May 22 - UBS Global Health Care Conference
May 29 - Deutsche Bank 38th Annual Healthcare Conference 
June 4 - Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference

Bank of America - Merrill Lynch - President Tony Strange & Eric Slusher CFO

Strange suggested Medicare does not pay for medicines when patients are treated at home.  Yet hospice must provide medicines that relate to their hospice diagnosis.  

Gentiva has over one thousand sales professionals on street every day pushing home health and hospice.

A Memory Care specialty program will be rolled out by end of third quarter.

Strange expects a look at rebasing in next three months.  In Q&A Strange spoke to consolidation, both Gentiva's exiting specific markets and acquiring struggling providers in other geographic areas.  Home Health will undergo increased scrutiny from payors, similar to hospice in early 2012.

Barclays: - Eric Slusher, EVP & CFO


Medicare rate cuts are intended to drive consolidation in Home Health and Hospice. Small operators won't have the scale to survive and will need to sell to larger firms or close.  Gentiva intends to be a consolidator.

Hospice division experienced higher deaths and discharges in the first quarter than expected.  This oddity has resolved as of mid April..

The new Memory Care specialty program will have staff trained by the end of summer.

Gentiva is "sitting on a boatload of cash," despite paying out executive incentive compensation in Q1  Overall, it was a "good quarter." 

Home Health growth was in 5% range.  Hospice admissions grew, but length of stay and average daily census declined more than budgeted. 

The CFO danced around the request for a "same store sales"analysis.  He expects the company to get a feel on rebasing in next month and a half.

UBS - Link to Barclays Presentation

No audio available.

Gentiva executives never mentioned the shareholder "say on pay" vote.  Yet, I believe it could be one reason for Gentiva's hitting so many investor meetings in 2013..  Then again, it may not.

Anonymous