BATON ROUGE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED) today announced it is now a home health and hospice care provider for United Healthcare across the southeast including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee. Becoming an in-network provider for United Healthcare enables Amedisys to care for more than 4.9 million people who are members of United Healthcare’s commercial and Medicare Advantage plans across the southeast.

“We are excited about the momentum our managed care strategy gained in the second half of 2011 and in the new year,” said William F. Borne, chairman and chief executive officer for Amedisys. “In order for us to continue leading the healthcare at home industry, it’s important we are able to become a provider-of-choice for the nation’s leading managed care plans. Securing an agreement to care for United Healthcare patients across the southeast provides great momentum for the organization in these markets,” he concluded.

In 2011, Amedisys became an in network home healthcare provider for 71 managed care plans across 24 states, which included three national agreements, and a hospice care provider for 27 managed care plans across 12 states. The company now has agreements with 240 managed care providers across the country and is focused on adding to its network.

“We find more and more managed care providers are looking for reliable, high-quality home health and hospice care providers to join their provider networks as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement,” said Bob Yungk, chief strategy officer for Amedisys. “Home health and hospice care is a critical component to managing risk in elderly, chronically ill patients to help reduce unnecessary re-hospitalizations and enhance medication and disease management. We are excited about the progress we are making in securing more relationships with managed care providers and look forward to delivering high-quality care for their members,” he concluded.

For more information about connecting with Amedisys as an in-network provider, please visit: www.amedisys.com/ManagedCare.

About Amedisys:

Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED) is a leading health care company focused on bringing home the continuum of care. Amedisys delivers personalized health care services to patients and their families in the comfort of patients' homes. Amedisys care teams delivered 11 million patient care visits in 2011. Amedisys has two divisions, home health care and hospice. The Company's state-of-the-art advanced chronic care management programs and leading-edge technology enables it to deliver quality care based upon the latest evidence-based best practices. Amedisys is a recognized innovator, being one of the first in the industry to equip its clinicians with point-of-care laptop technology and referring physicians with an internet portal that enables real-time coordination of patient care seamlessly. Amedisys also has the industry's first-ever nationwide Care Transitions program. Amedisys Care Transitions is designed to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions through patient and caregiver health coaching and care coordination, which starts in the hospital and continues throughout completion of the patient's home health plan of care. For more information about the Company, please visit: http://www.amedisys.com.

This press release includes statements that may constitute "forward-looking" statements, usually containing the words "believe," "estimate," "project," "expect," "anticipate" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Many of the factors that could cause or contribute to such differences are described in the Company's periodic reports and registrations statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and include, but are not limited to the following: general economic and business conditions, changes in or failure to comply with existing regulations or the inability to comply with new government regulations on a timely basis, changes in Medicare and other medical reimbursement levels, ability to complete acquisitions announced from time to time, and any financing related thereto, the ability to meet debt service requirements and to comply with covenants in debt agreements, adverse changes in federal and state laws relating to the health care industry, demographic changes, availability and terms of capital, ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, ongoing development and success of new start-ups, ability to successfully integrate newly acquired agencies, changes in estimates and judgments associated with critical accounting policies, business disruption due to natural disasters or acts of terrorism, and various other matters, many of which are beyond management's control. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.

Our company website address is http://www.amedisys.com. We use our website as a channel of distribution for important company information. Important information, including press releases, analyst presentations and financial information regarding the Company is routinely posted on and accessible on the "Investor Relations" subpage of our website, which is accessible by clicking on the tab labeled "Investors" on our website home page. We will also use our website to expedite public access to time-critical information regarding the Company in advance of or in lieu of distributing a press release or a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") disclosing the same information. In addition, we make available on the Investor Relations subpage of our website (under the link "SEC filings") free of charge our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, ownership reports on Forms 3, 4 and 5 and any amendments to those reports as soon as practicable after we electronically file such reports with the SEC. Further, copies of our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws, our Code of Ethical Business Conduct and the charters for the Audit, Compensation and Nominating and Governance Committees of our Board are also available on the Investor Relations subpage of our website (under the link "Corporate Governance").

Amedisys, Inc.
Jacqueline Chen Valencia, 225-252-5091
Marketing & Communications
[email protected]

Source: Amedisys, Inc.