Angels Care Hospice Expands Services to Fill Regional Gaps

Mansfield, Texas-based Angels Care Hospice has set the ball rolling on expanding to two additional counties, reaching areas that have lacked a provider for more than a decade.

By extending its footprint, the company is helping to fill a gap left when Big Bend Regional Medical Center in Alpine, Texas, shuttered its hospice program in 2010. Angels Care is a portfolio company of AngMar Medical Holdings, Inc.

“There’s a major need for [hospice here,” Angels Care Account Executive Tiffni Bird told local news. “We’re slowly building up our staff out there and providing hospice care.”

AngMar Medical Holdings, Inc. launched the Angels Care Hospice brand after it acquired an undisclosed provider based in Wichita, Kansas. The private equity firm has also operated Angels Care Home Health since 2000. AngMar Holdings declined to comment to Hospice News on the recent expansion.

The hospice has since grown to seven locations in four states: Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas. It recently established services in Brewster County, Texas, which is part of the tri-county Big Bend region.

Texas markets are ripe for hospice growth. Nearly 143,300 patients received hospice care in the Lone Star State in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Only California and Florida had more patients who enrolled in the benefit that year, at roughly 156,000 and more than 154,500, respectively.

Demographics are driving demand for hospice in Texas, including the region where Angels Care Hospice is expanding. Adults 65 and older make up nearly a quarter (24.6%) of Brewster County’s population, reported the U.S. Census Bureau. Seniors are expected to comprise more than 20% of the state’s population by 2030, up from 12.9% currently, projected the U.S. Census Bureau.

Angels Care Hospice has been conducting community outreach in its new service area, Lanae Lopez, executive director at Angels Care Hospice, told local news.

“We’ve even had families that just heard through the grapevine that Alpine now has hospice,” Lopez said. “They’ve called us themselves to let us know what was going on with their loved one.”