Third-quarter results included operations of VistaCare, which it acquired in March, the company, which provides hospice care, said in a statement on Tuesday.
It was a clean quarter with solid growth, driven by first real indication that operational synergies between the two companies are being realized, J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Dawn Brock said.
During the quarter, the company said it consolidated several of its Odyssey and VistaCare programs in overlapping markets, which resulted in a reduction of about $1.7 million in its year-to-date Medicare cap contractual.
"The direct market overlap was one of the primary benefits of the combined entity, not only to take share and build market dominance, but to provide a means to maximize cap with a balanced patient mix that is typically achieved best through more than one program," Brock wrote in a note to clients.
Brock upgraded the stock to "neutral" from "underweight."
Shares of the Dallas, Texas-based company rose to a high of $9.89 before paring some gains to trade up 16 percent at $8.78 Wednesday morning on Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Suzannah Benjamin in Bangalore; Editing by Deepak Kannan) Keywords: ODYSSEYHEALTHCARE/SHARES
Suzannah Benjamin vj
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