ModivCare buys VRI. While your Editor was on holiday leave enjoying the beautiful beaches of late-late summer, the long-rumored sale of PERS and remote patient monitoring provider VRI [TTA 9 July] closed on 22 September. The buyer is a non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT), home care (Simplura), and meal delivery company once known as Circulation and now ModivCare. Purchase price is $315 million, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. VRI generated $56 million of revenue and $21 million of adjusted EBITDA for the twelve-month period ended June 30, 2021. The majority owner of VRI since 2014 was Pamlico Capital. VRI will remain HQ’d in Franklin, Ohio and Sullivan, Illinois. Jason Anderson remains as its CEO under ModivCare. Business Wire release, ModivCare news site. And PERS Insider has an insightful article with a link to the investor presentation

VRI gives ModivCare immediate revenue, as well as impressive capabilities in medical alert systems, established monitoring centers, connecting care in the home plus other residential settings, and cross-selling in ModivCare’s relationships with Medicare Advantage and Medicaid (state) plans. Your Editor became familiar with VRI as far back as 2006 in her QuietCare days, then when Andy Schoonover and Chris Hendricksen ran VRI (and your Editor wished they’d buy the company). Andy Schoonover is now the CEO of CrowdHealth, a community-based provider of health services.

ModivCare has managed 48.2 million trips through the industry’s largest network of contracted transportation companies. They recently signed another agreement with Uber Health to provide on-demand transportation in underserved communities. They claim to be the largest NEMT company in the US with a 40% market share and trades publicly on NASDAQ with a market capitalization of $2.3 billion. NEMT is one of the linchpins of social determinants of health (SDOH). 

And Connect America treated itself to a snack after the big meal of Lifeline. PERS Insider broke the news on their purchase of 100Plus, supposedly the first AI-powered RPM company. Terms, purchase price, and management changes were not disclosed. Their pitch is to providers with an essentially turnkey system: identify eligible patients, perform patient consent and training, ships devices directly to your patients ready to use, and a ‘virtual medical assistant’ to monitor patients. The AI part of this is Ava, an AI-enabled, text message-based chatbot. This strengthens Connect America’s small RPM division, ConnectVitals. Release  

Connect America also announced in August that they will be opening a new facility to consolidate the scattered Lifeline operations into a single purpose-built location. The new $1 million, 25,000 square-foot facility will bring 71 jobs to the area and will open by end of year. PERS Insider, Upstate Business Journal