Winchester Home Health Agency is Acquired

December 17, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARLINGTON, VA--Capitol Partners, a middle market focused private equity firm, has announced the completion of the acquisition of Middle Tennessee Home Health in Winchester through its portfolio platform company CareSouth Health System. CareSouth plans to use the Winchester agency, which has changed its name to CareSouth of Middle Tennessee, as a base to establish a larger presence in the state.

According to T.J. Jubeir, managing partner of the private equity firm "This acquisition builds upon our established homecare foundation and further solidifies our position in the marketplace."

CareSouth's CEO Rick Griffin believes Tennessee offers tremendous growth potential for his company. "Our plan is to use this as an entry into the state and systematically open agencies in other underserved home care markets. We anticipate that by this time next year, we will have three agencies open serving three additional regions of Middle Tennessee."

CareSouth owns agencies in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and California and manages operations on behalf of other homecare providers throughout the country. The need to reduce health care costs and ongoing advances in technology coupled with recent changes in health care reimbursement policies are resulting in new growth for the home care industry. CareSouth's goal is to provide quality care to enable patients to remain in their homes and receive the medical care and support they need.

The private equity firm's ultimate objective for CareSouth is to create the premier homecare company. By leveraging its cost-effectiveness and deep clinical consulting knowledge, CareSouth aims to emerge as not only the premier, regionally-focused clinical homecare company but additionally the low-cost service provider.

For further information, contact Capitol Partners at 703.248.9600.