Rob Schlissberg, president of Cardinal Health’s at-Home Solutions business, has an expansive answer to “So what are you doing this summer?”
Last week, at-Home Solutions announced two acquisitions on the same day: AdaptHealth’s diabetes business and Strive Medical, an independent supplier specializing in urology.
But despite being incredibly busy, Schlissberg was excited during our 1-on-1 interview — not just because of the expansion news, but also for what it will mean for patients, clinicians, and the at-Home Solutions team itself.
A growth opportunity, a solvable problem
Schlissberg acknowledged diabetes is a huge healthcare issue — and that at-Home Solutions is well-positioned to tackle it.
“We have been very overt about our interest in diabetes,” he said. “We think it’s a problem worth solving. It’s a problem that is continuing to grow in the U.S. We believe that our size and scale are really imperative to providing great care and a great customer experience to that population.”
AdaptHealth’s diabetes business will join previous at-Home Solutions acquisitions in the diabetes care segment.
Schlissberg added, “It’s been an area of focus for us within both our Cardinal at-Home distribution business, as well as Edgepark,” which Cardinal Health acquired in 2013 when it purchased Edgepark’s parent company, AssuraMed. In April 2025, Cardinal Health added to its diabetes business by completing its acquisition of Advanced Diabetes Supply Group (ADS) and United States Medical Supply (US MED).
With that foundation already in place — and especially because of the immense infrastructure investment at-Home Solutions made while integrating ADS — Schlissberg said adding AdaptHealth “fits very nicely within our core strategy. It provides us an opportunity to continue to deliver great care to patients that really need it, and it’s something that we’re extremely excited about.”
Schlissberg acknowledged that sizable acquisitions are “always a lot of work and a lot of effort,” but added that at-Home Solutions’ “guiding principle” is that the “patient comes first. And we will always do whatever is required to ensure continuity of care and ensure that we deliver the best patient experience possible. Certainly, doing the ADSG deal helped us. Not that we hadn’t done deals before, but [the ADS acquisition] helped us build a more robust playbook, if you will, of how we think about these. And we will follow that and continue to evolve as we integrate the patient base. But it all starts with creating that right patient experience, ensuring continuity of care.”
Protecting the patient relationship and regimen
As part of that continuity, Schlissberg said the acquisition included welcoming members of the AdaptHealth team focused on diabetes.
“There’s a portion of the team that is fully dedicated to the diabetes health business within AdaptHealth that will be coming over and joining Cardinal Health and the at-Home Solutions business,” he noted. “And we are certainly very excited to pick up some outstanding talent and experienced folks that are really aligned in our mission and our commitment to delivering the right type of care.”
Schlissberg added that the existing at-Home Solutions team will be seeking to learn from their new colleagues. “It’s also our ability to learn from each other and say, hey, you know what, I really like the way this team is doing X, Y or Z. Let’s broaden that to our entire team and patient population and vice versa. We had great success and continue to do so with ADS, and we really look forward to that, as well as with the Strive Medical acquisition. A lot of great learning.”
Following the sale of its diabetes segment to Cardinal Health, AdaptHealth (Nasdaq: AHCO) CEO Suzanne Foster separately described the divestiture as “the latest — and most significant — step in a deliberate, multi-year effort to focus AdaptHealth on our core businesses where we have the strongest competitive position and the clearest path to growth.”
Foster added that in the last two years, AdaptHealth has “reshaped” its portfolio “around our core sleep, respiratory and supporting HME [home medical equipment] lines where we cross the threshold of the home to deliver clinical value to patients.”
After the acquisition news broke, Jefferies Financial Group, a New York-based independent global investment banking firm, upgraded AdaptHealth to “buy” from “hold.”
Bringing Strive Medical into at-Home Solutions
Acquiring Strive Medical adds to a different portion of the at-Home Solutions portfolio.
“It is predominantly urology,” Schlissberg said in describing the Irving, Texas-based provider that served approximately 20,000 patients per year prior to its acquisition. Strive Medical also provides wound care supplies and “to a lesser degree diabetes, but it’s not been a primary focus.” The company also provided limited amounts of ostomy supplies, and Schlissberg said that’s a potential expansion opportunity.
All of the segments involved in that acquisition announcement — diabetes, urology, wound care, ostomy — share one critical factor: They’re supplies that patients need urgently and consistently.
“These people didn’t ask to have the conditions they have,” Schlissberg said. “They don’t want to do business with us. So we want to help them live their lives uninterrupted. Our ability to make sure the right product at the right time is at their door, and that it’s really easy, is imperative to what we do.”
He pointed out that behind the scenes, Cardinal Health continues to invest in at-Home Solutions distribution centers “to deliver that patient care to make sure everybody has what they need, when they need it.” at-Home Solutions has 11 fully operational distribution centers currently, with distribution center number 12 now under construction in Sacramento, Calif. That infrastructure gives at-Home Solutions the ability “to reach the vast majority of the U.S. population next-day,” Schlissberg said. “Those things really help us and provide us an opportunity to deliver that patient care to make sure everybody has what they need when they need it. What we want to do are these medical supplies and devices that folks need on an ongoing basis that they need very quickly and are imperative to their quality of life.”
Using the diabetes segment as an example, “The CGM [continuous glucose monitor] is the absolute standard of care,” Schlissberg said. “We believe everybody with diabetes should be wearing a device.”
at-Home Solutions is aiming, he said, for a “frictionless experience,” noting that when it’s time to reorder supplies, “We don’t even want [patients] to have to think about that. We want to help them remember to do so. We want to help alert them and make sure that they’re getting the things they need without having to, again, change their daily lives — and to make the day-to-day job of that prescribing healthcare professional easier as well.”
Supporting home-based care
The AdaptHealth diabetes business and Strive Medical acquisitions were announced as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services revives its controversial Medicare competitive bidding program. CGMs, urological supplies and ostomy supplies have been named as durable medical equipment (DME) categories that will be competitively bid.
Nonetheless, Cardinal Health’s acquisition activity speaks boldly of the company’s belief in the home medical equipment segment.
“If you ever attended one of our meetings, you would hear me saying, ‘Where else would you want to be?’” Schlissberg said. “I feel very lucky and privileged to work in the industry in which we do, because we believe that quality care in the home is great for everybody. We want to do what we can to help empower and simplify that for all involved.
“There’s no question there’s a lot going on specifically in the DME industry. It’s just the nature of the business, but we believe it provides great value. We will continue to lean in and invest in this part of our business and our portfolio, because it’s the right thing to do. It’s good for our customers, but also for our employees.”
