Accendra Health, Inc.

Hello, good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ascendria Health's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Will Parrish, Vice President, Strategy, Corporate Development, and Investor Relations.

thank you operator good afternoon everyone and welcome to ascendra health's fourth quarter earnings call our comments on the call will be focused on the financial results of the fourth quarter of 2025 all of which are included in today's press release the press release along with the fourth quarter 2025 supplemental slides are posted on the investor relations section of our website please note that during this call, we will make forward-looking statements that reflect the current views of Ascendra Health about our business, financial performance, and future events. The matters addressed in these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied here today. Our expectations, beliefs, and projections are expressed in good faith, and we believe there is a reasonable basis for them. However, there can be no assurance that our expectations, beliefs, and projections will result or be achieved. Please refer to our SEC filings for a full description of these risks and uncertainties, including the risk factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call or in our earnings press release are, as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events, except to the extent required by applicable law. In our discussion today, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures and believe they might help investors to better understand our performance or business trends. Information about these measures and reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release. Today, I am joined by Ed Pasica, Ascendra Health's President and Chief Executive Officer, John Leon, the company's Chief Financial Officer, and Perry Bernake, the company's Chief Operating Officer. I will now turn the call over to Ed. Ed?

Thank you, Will. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. I am pleased to welcome all of you to our very first earnings call as Ascendra Health. I'd like to begin by giving you my thoughts related to the strengths of Ascender Health and why we are so excited for our future and where we are going. First, it is important to understand the size of the market that we serve or the size of the pie. Our expansive payer relationship gives us access to approximately 300 million Americans, of which the CDC estimates that three out of four adults are living with some type of chronic condition. and our nationwide footprint makes Ascendra Health a premier choice for all constituents involved in the administration of care in the home-based setting. In this expansive market, we have developed high brand recognition and customer support and reliance on both Byram and Apria, our two primary go-to-market brands. We have established this through leading service, consistency, and reliability. This continues to be validated by net promoter scores that have exceeded the industry average for the last several years. We also have a broad range of growing product offerings and capabilities, which provides us the ability to serve patients in the home in many of the largest and fastest growing chronic condition categories. As a result of the foregoing, we are a national leader in home-based care for numerous chronic conditions which afflict millions of Americans, and our strengths are differentiators compared to the vast majority of the thousands of other participants in the industry. As we look forward, we have a bullish outlook on the long-term demand for our unique offerings. Economic pressures continue to push care to the home-based setting, while the country's aging population is afflicted with a rising number of chronic conditions. We are also optimistic about the strong long-term demand due to increasing awareness about proactive health management amongst a population which is still meaningfully underdiagnosed, specifically in the sleep category. Another area of opportunity for us is in the anticipated competitive bidding, specifically in diabetes, urology, and ostomy, all categories of strength for Ascendra Health. As CMS, along with ourselves and other industry leaders, work to drive fraud, waste, and abuse out of the system, we believe that we are well positioned for Medicare's competitive bidding process considering our footprints, our efficient service model, and broad existing referral source recognition. To capitalize on the overall favorable backdrop, we are leveraging technology and automation to ensure that we provide an industry-leading home-based care offering built on one, being a trusted, reliable, and easy to understand partner for our patients and their clinicians. Two, an integrated, streamlined, and compliant reimbursement process for our payers while at the same time maintaining a best in class revenue cycle management capabilities. And three, providing a streamlined and cost efficient channel to market for our manufacturing partners. Just a few examples of the use of technology to both improve the customer experience while also lowering our cost to serve include the use of technology to automate payer qualifications, enabling faster and more accurate order validation, and improving revenue capture. Another example, building on the strength of our MyViram app, is the expected launch of our new MyAPRIA app in Q2 of this year. which is expected to enhance the customer experience while also increasing operational efficiency and supporting patient therapy adherence. Finally, in a practical application of leveraging technology, enhancing the customer experience, and overall focus, we continue to see success in the fourth quarter with our sleep journey initiative. I'm happy to highlight continued success in our sale of sleep supplies which grew in the range of 8% to 9% for both the quarter and full year. Finally, we are pleased to finish the fourth quarter with the completion of the sale of our former products and healthcare services business, Owens & Miner, to Platinum Equity on December 31st. I'd like to thank and commend all parties involved for working so diligently to complete the transaction in such a quick timeframe. With the transaction now closed and final separation work well underway, Ascender Health is now devoting all of its focus and energy to strengthening our core home-based care businesses to achieve reliable and growing free cash flow, stable growth, and debt reduction. We're entering 2026 as a much leaner and more nimble business with a much higher margin profile post-PNHS divestiture. We have already taken actions to lean out our business and expect to continue taking actions to eliminate costs to address the loss of a large commercial payer, as well as stranded costs. Despite never wanting to lose a customer, we maintained our financial discipline during the process. Since that time, our focus has been to ensure smooth transition of patient care and minimize our cost of transitioning the relationship related to this contract. Finally, now that we have the sales proceeds in hand, we are well positioned to take a thoughtful approach to optimizing our capital structure, taking into consideration all stakeholders. We are committed to deleveraging combined with metered investments as we move forward. This will be a continuation of what we did in Q4 with investments in technology while also paying down debt by $65 million from ordinary free cash flow. Before I turn it over to John, let me reiterate my excitement about the strength of Ascender Health, the growing market that we participate in, and where we are going as a business. With that, I will now turn the call over to John to discuss our financial performance in the fourth quarter and our outlook for 2026. John?