Accendra Health, Inc.

Hello, good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Accenture Health's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Will Parrish, Vice President, Strategy, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to Ascendra Health's first quarter earnings call. Our comments on the call will be focused on the financial results of the first quarter of 2026, all of which are included in today's press release. The press release, along with the first quarter 2026 supplemental slides, which we will refer to throughout the call, are posted in the investor relations section of our website. Please note that during the call, we will make forward-looking statements that reflect the current views of Ascendra Health about our business, financial performance, and future events. 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 in our earnings press release or in our supplemental slides 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 reconciliations 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 morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. It is great to be reporting our first full quarter as a stand-alone, pure-play, home-based care company. Accendra Health's first quarter results were in line with our expectations and included key accomplishments in our transformation into a leaner, nimbler, and higher margin business. And we are excited about where we will go from here. First, I am pleased to report that the transition services and separation activities from Owens & Miner are on track and going according to schedule. allowing Accendra Health to fully function as a completely independent company from Owens & Miner. And we are excited to be devoting all of our focus and energy to growing our leading position and capabilities in the home-based care space. Another update that I want to highlight is that as of the end of the first quarter, we have substantially completed the exit stemming from our previously disclosed transition away from a large commercial payer. and the handover has gone as expected, with our team ensuring continuity of care for the patients while also minimizing our cost to transition the business. To secure this smooth transition for patients, we engaged with another industry player to sell them the substantial amount of Ascender-owned equipment that was dedicated to the large commercial payers' patients. And at the same time, we facilitated the transition of personnel along with other variable and certain fixed costs from Ascendra to that same industry player. This solution provided the best outcome for all stakeholders, particularly patients, and also allowed us to quickly begin the rationalization of our corporate infrastructure as we pivot away from this large commercial payer. Again, while we never want to exit a customer relationship, we maintained our financial discipline throughout the contracting and transition process. and we are excited to have the vast majority of this exit behind us. I'd also like to remind everyone that while we have exited our largest capitated agreement with this transition, we still have other smaller capitation agreements which are very attractive. Going forward, we will continue to be excited about pursuing both fee-for-service agreements as well as capitated agreements, which still can be very compelling under the right circumstances. Staying with our payers, I am happy to announce that we recently reached an agreement for an exclusive multi-year extension with our largest commercial payer for soft goods, such as ostomy, urology, diabetes, incontinence, and others. This extension of the longstanding partnership provides certainty for our business in the years ahead. In order to provide more clarity around our payer mix, we have provided you with slide number five that clearly shows the diversification of our commercial payer portfolio. As a reminder, with the notable exception of the large commercial payer discussed a moment ago, the vast majority of our commercial payer relationships are contracted at the individual state level and are then aggregated under the National Parent Organization in this slide for presentation purposes. Accordingly, we are well positioned with the diversified commercial payer portfolio with no major renewals on the horizon. In addition to the commercial payers just noted, approximately 20% of our revenue is from traditional Medicare. We are supportive of the government's recent efforts to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse, including the upcoming competitive bidding program. As one of the large national players in the market, we are proud of our ability to operate at scale as well as our track record of rigid compliance with government requirements while providing the highest quality of service to patients. Thus, we expect to continue to thrive in this new era. Next, I would like to provide an update on several of our strategic initiatives, which are streamlining our business through centralization, standardization, and automation with the goal of driving top-line growth and reducing our overall cost profile, all while providing an industry-leading experience for patients. I'd like to start by highlighting our focus on sleep therapy. I'm pleased to report that our sleep journey program continues to deliver anticipated results with the sleep supplies portion of our sleep therapy category delivering strong year-over-year growth. We are particularly proud of this initiative as it helps drive stronger fundamentals in the sleep supply category in the form of higher revenue per order, lower patient attrition, and better patient outcomes through higher therapy adherence rates. We expect this initiative to continue to drive higher patient therapy adherence through the efforts of our dedicated sleep coaches and other clinical initiatives. Building on the success of our sleep journey, as well as our proven track record with our existing centers of excellence for other categories, we recently formed our Sleep Center of Excellence, which serves as a centralized and standardized expert-led team, which is responsible for the patient's first interaction with Ascendra. and the initiation of their PATH therapy. This program is building a trusted, patient-first ecosystem that balances operational efficiency with compassionate care. Our dedicated team manages order process, scheduling, and patient onboarding to ensure a consistent, high-quality start to each patient's therapy journey. Our Sleep Center of Excellence is designed to cultivate patient satisfaction and loyalty by ensuring a consistent, high-quality patient experience that we expect will enhance provider confidence in our already strong brand by driving growth in our referral pipeline. This initiative has already seen a successful pilot in select markets during the first quarter, with a nationwide launch continuing in the second quarter. The combination of a sleep journey and our new Sleep Center of Excellence will enable us to improve patient capture and patient adherence. and to enhance the experience for all stakeholders, patients, providers, and payers, which should result in improved growth in the sleep category. Finally, I would like to provide an update on our capital structure. In our press release this morning, we announced a comprehensive balance sheet optimization transaction, which will strengthen Ascendra's balance sheet by paying off our 2027 maturities, significantly reduce total debt, and meaningfully extend maturities while also affording the company financial and strategic flexibility with ample liquidity. John will walk you through the details in a moment, but we believe that this comprehensive balance sheet optimization transaction lays the foundation for Ascendra's long-term trajectory as a standalone business. With this behind us, it will enable us to devote 100% of our focus on the business. we are excited to remove any uncertainty about our 2027 maturities and any pressure they may have put on our overall valuation. Before I turn the call over to John, I would like to reiterate how transformative the last several months have been for Ascendra and how excited we are for the future. Our business today is dramatically different than it was prior to the divestiture of Owens & Miner. If you look at page six of the supplemental slides, you can see how we have transformed a company with gross margins in the 19% range and EBITDA margins of approximately 4% to a standalone home-based care business with nearly 50% gross margins and double-digit EBITDA margins. Additionally, if you move ahead to slide 7, you can see how much of the earnings and consistent cash flow of what is now Ascendra Health backstopped the PNHS business consumption of cash in the recent periods. With the divestiture behind us, we look forward to enjoying a much cleaner and less volatile cash flow profile. In closing, we couldn't be more pleased with the transformation we have delivered over the past several months. And while we have much work ahead of us, we are excited about where Ascendra Health is taking home-based care into the future. With that, I will hand the call over to John to discuss the financials. John?