Option Care Health, Inc Investor Event Transcript, Sep 15, 2026
Option Care Health, Inc. (OPCH)
Conference Transcript - OPCH 2026-09-15
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay. Good afternoon or morning, everyone. My name is Erin Wright. I'm the health care services analyst at Morgan Stanley, and welcome to our 24th annual Global Morgan Stanley Health Care Conference. For more important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at morganstanley.com slash research disclosures. And with that, we're happy to have Option Care with us today, CEO John Redemacher and CFO Minol Sintha. Happy to have you with us today. I think, John, you wanted to start out with some prepared remarks or some opening remarks, and then we'll get into the fireside chat.
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah. Thank you for coming today. Great seeing you again. And, you know, as we exited the second quarter, just wanted to reinforce really the momentum that we feel within the business, the execution of the team. As we had called out, first quarter certainly had a step down in performance as our expectations, and we really wanted to look at the second quarter to identify how to stabilize and then more importantly start to build the momentum and move forward. And as we reported in the second quarter, that momentum, not only the stabilization happened, but the momentum continued to move forward. And we really are excited about the breadth of the portfolio that we have, really in the three areas of focus around our acute therapies, our specialty therapies, and then the rare and limited distribution therapy side. And so a lot of activity, a lot of focus of the team around those three areas of making certain that we're best in class. And more importantly, that we are the partner of choice for our key stakeholders, whether it's a hospital system, whether it's a physician practice, whether it's a clinic, whether it's a pharma partner, or if it's working with the payers in identifying opportunities to help reduce the total cost of care. So really good progress, more to do, but like the momentum of the business and starting to build that path forward.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay, great. So I'll start with your guidance in the most recent quarter, and you adjusted your expected 2026 CID, or chronic inflammatory portfolio, with Stellar kind of earlier this year, and that headwind moved to about $55 million from 25 to 35 originally. So, you know, though you have largely maintained your EBITDA guidance, which is encouraging, you're expecting mid-single-digit EBITDA growth in the third quarter and then a pickup in the fourth quarter. Can you talk a little bit about and walk us through that cadence into the second half. I think that's one of the bigger questions we're getting from investors as we think about mapping this out.
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
Sure. So why don't I start? And again, Erin, thank you for having us. So, you know, if I take a step back, our normal seasonal pattern does continue to consecutively grow or sequentially grow throughout the year. So that, you know, it's not unusual for us to have a larger Q4 versus when you take a look at things in Q1. You know, given some of what John talked about with some of the Stellara dynamics in the first quarter. You know, this year we started off with a slightly lower first quarter than we might normally see, and there are a number of different actions and initiatives that we put into place that we expect to ramp a little bit more than we might normally see in prior years. So as an example, we've talked about the fact that we have invested in a significant number of commercial resources starting in the fourth quarter but going into the first quarter. So as we have these resources on board, productivity increases, their relationships with providers and referral sources continues to increase. We expect to see a continued positive sequential impact through the year, especially across the chronic portfolio on that area. I think, you know, secondly, a number of other initiatives that we have, I'd call them also ordinary course of business, but an increased focus on these where we continue to work with payers on site of care initiatives, on really managing through, you know, the value realization as they're focused on lower cost of care. And we're, you know, a key enabler of that, making sure that, you know, that we're being compensated for the value that we're providing. and at the same time also working closely with suppliers and pharma partners as we start to see growth and volume growth in those partnerships. You know, what can we do to balance cost and cash basis there? And then I'd say, you know, the last piece is we've also been talking for a while about technology investments that we've been making. We continue to make those. Those have been focused really a lot of that around the patient experience from patient onboarding all the way through the revenue cycle management. But as we continue to focus on reducing our costs through automation, that's going to be an opportunity for us. And we're even looking at opportunities for increased nursing productivity by leveraging more technology around nursing, routing, and scheduling, which allows them to then spend more time serving patients as well. So I wouldn't call it one particular vector that we're focused on, but it's a number of different things that we're focused on to really drive the EBITDA expansion in the second half.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
And have you built in some buffers around, for instance, how you've modeled CID census growth? And what if you, you know, how is that commercial productivity and efficiency initiatives playing out to offset that so far? Is that progressing according to plan? Are there other levers that you can pull in the event that that doesn't play out according to plan?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah, you know, coming out of the second quarter, as we said, we started to see some of that momentum. As Meenel had called out, that investment into additional resources in the commercial, it takes a while for them to ramp up and to become fully productive through that process. So all that starts to build on it. One of the things we called out in the first quarter is with some of the shift that we saw in the patient census, the specialty products, those patients that have chronic conditions, that's a building census right in the sense of those patients are getting reoccurring infusions or injections through that process and it might be in a six to eight week regimen sometimes a little bit longer depending on the therapy so as that builds in that we stabilize that census and then start building and growing from that it just creates more of that reoccurring revenue so our focus is really around getting the right team members at the right place at the right time. So a lot of that focus was around training and upskilling and getting them on board. It's around targeting and making certain that they're spending their time efficiently, effectively around where they're targeting. And it's deepening the relationships with the existing referral sources that we have to make certain that we're capturing as many of the patients as possible as they're looking for service providers for that patient census.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay. And then guidance also assumes into the fourth quarter, what's implied is about 400, 500 basis points, you know, margin expansion, EBITDA margin expansion into the fourth quarter. I guess, how do we think about then margins on a normalized basis as we head into 2027? Like, what is that right baseline we should be thinking about? And just thinking about some of those moving pieces as we head into 2027?
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
Sure. And I think on the EBITDA, I think it's probably more the 40 or 50 basis margin, yeah, margin expansion. You know, if I take a step back and I look at the full year and I even think about comparing that to 2025, you know, the margins that we're projecting for 26, we expect to be for the full year, you know, in the same reasonable range as they were for 2025. Why you, you know, one of the questions we've been getting is, boy, but the fourth quarter margin looks a little higher than it typically does. And I come back to, yes, but we had a lower than typical margin in the first quarter. So some of that is balancing that out. And, you know, again, back to my comments about sequential seasonality uptick, you know, as we continue to have sequential revenue growth all the way up through the fourth quarter, you know, we're getting better leverage on the fixed costs that are there, which normally provides a margin expansion. So So it's really, you know, we've got more initiatives in the back half of the year. We expect more productivity from those initiatives, and that's really what would drive a higher margin.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
And then so bigger picture, can you speak to OptionCare's long-term growth algo now? When do you think you can return to those levels following kind of some of the dynamics that we're seeing with Stellara and others? is it high single-digit revenue growth, low double-digit EBITDA growth, and EPS growing slightly higher than that? Is still the right way to think about it?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Let me frame it at the highest level, and then I'll let Meenal kind of talk about the process and how we're looking at moving forward. Coming out of the first quarter, our expectations were we needed to really understand kind of the dynamics and the shifting dynamics that were different than we expected, especially in that chronic inflammatory portfolio as we were moving that ahead. And we wanted to see how that patterned into the second quarter. And again, we're pleased to be able to report the stabilization and kind of the momentum that we felt out of that. From our perspective, we see that there are vectors of growth as we're looking at that forward view that we're excited about. We continue to drive extreme amount of value in the acute therapies in helping to manage patients safely and effectively to transition out of an inpatient setting into the home and manage them effectively through that process. The product portfolio within the specialty space continues to expand and there are great opportunities for us to capture more of that market share as we're deploying additional resources on that. Our capability set when you look at a national network of highly advanced pharmacies as well as the clinical capabilities with our nursing network is unique in the marketplace. And so to be able to partner with pharma to be able to introduce new products and support that through its journey, we feel we are really well positioned to do that. And the conversations that we've been having with payers around helping them manage the total cost of care and their medical loss ratios around utilizing our capabilities, those site of care initiatives, again, continue to pick up momentum through that standpoint. So I'd say at a whole, you know, across those dimensions of where we see and where we play today, we think there are opportunities for us to continue to drive that growth and utilize our national scale, but our local responsiveness in ways that captures more of the demand that's in the marketplace. So I'll put it around that, Erin, to contextualize our confidence in this model, our confidence in this business remains intact. Trying to understand some of the implications of the chronic inflammatory disease, we just want to be very thoughtful in the way that we approach it.
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
Yeah, and as we start thinking about getting into 2027, we like other companies that have a year-end, December 31st year-end. we're finalizing the long-range plan, and that then nicely tends to dovetail into the budgeting process. It's a little early for us at this point to get into what that looks like for 2027 and beyond. But in the coming months, as we find the right time frame, we'll definitely be providing more color, both on 27, but with some of the aspects that John just talked about as we think about that longer term as well.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Yeah, I think sometimes it gets lost in the whole Stellara dynamic the bigger picture here in terms of you as a solutions provider across the healthcare system more broadly. But I do want to dig a little bit into the portfolio, and you've given some great metrics in terms of, you know, 4% or no more than 4% of your gross profit is tied to one product. You know, how do you think about, you know, therapy, line of therapy kind of exposure and dynamics around biosimilars or price changes or subcutaneous transitions and how you can kind of navigate that going forward and how I think you're limited in terms of your outsized exposure, but how do you potentially limit that even further going forward?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah, we start with the breadth of the portfolio. When you look at how broad the portfolio is in the expansion of bringing new products in, that is front and center, like the focus of the enterprise. And we like the fact that we can provide everything from the acute, you know, short duration antibiotics through the most sophisticated specialty drugs. And that shows not only the breadth, but the depth of the clinical team and our capabilities in order to do that. As you're looking forward around just the diversity of the portfolio, and you called out, I mean, there is no product that is more than 4% of the revenue. And so that just demonstrates the breadth of the portfolio as we move that forward. I think we called out in previous conversations, we have over 600 products that are part of our portfolio, and that's growing every day as our team kind of looks at those opportunities. You know, the opportunity to support from a specialty pharmacy standpoint, we are a specialty pharmacy. We're URAC accredited. We maintain patients that move from IV induction dose onto subcutaneous. It's part of our normal flow. There's different dynamics associated with that, with the economics, when, again, you don't have nursing and other components involved. But we are a full-spectrum pharmacy, and we do have that specialty pharmacy capability to continue to support patients on their journey and then wrap around that the clinical competencies of the enterprise. So sitting here today, there's nothing that we're looking forward that is a significant disruption over that midterm horizon. You know, the products we're watching, you know, have dynamics of having a competitive environment today anyways around alternatives in the marketplace. And a lot of our focus is around the new products that are being developed that are moving through the product pipeline and making certain that we are a partner of choice for pharma to introduce those products as being part of our formulary, whether it's in a limited distribution network or in a full spectrum network. We want to be part of that pharmacy solution for them, and care team to expand the portfolio broadly.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay, and then I want to speak about kind of biosimilars just more broadly, kind of where are some of the puts and takes as you think about how it flows through your model, how you think about how PBM owned or private label biosimilars, like what we, the dynamic we saw with Stellara in formulary exclusions, you know, change that traditional pattern of biosimilars, although I think that it's going to be defined to certain categories, right, and help to explain that in terms of that dynamic and how you think about more broadly biosimilars flowing through your mind.
John C. Rademacher, CEO
You want to talk about the model first, and I'll talk to you broadly?
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
Yeah, I mean, first I'll start out with, I know we've had a lot of dialogue about Stellara, but Stellara was a pretty unique situation as I start out with that. You know, we talked about a, I think the way we've described it to many people, it's really we had a branded product with some pretty strong margins, generic-like margins. And so we really don't have other products in our portfolio with that type of profile. What we typically see with biosimilars, and this has been the history we've had on a number of different therapies, is, you know, as there are biosimilars that have come in because of some event, an LOE event as an example, you know, there's a fair amount of competition that starts in there, which tends to be quite advantageous for us because, you know, when it's just a single branded product, that isn't the case. And so with that competition and even with the pricing, the pricing may drop a little bit initially, but we do tend to see improved gross profit as you see more entrance in that space. And then also with some volume increases as well, that can turn into improved profitability profiles for us overall. So that's more of a typical profile of what we've seen when we see a few biosimilars come in. And, you know, it's a big part of our portfolio as well.
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah. And the only thing I'd add, Erin, is the uniqueness of the situation with Stellara. There's about 10 biosimilars that all entered in a pretty tight timeframe. That created a really interesting dynamic when you then had the IRA backdrop of a 66% reduction in the branded pharmaceutical price. So, again, sitting here today and looking forward, there really is nothing else in our portfolio that has the similar characteristics. And in a normal process, right, if you expect that it's going to be rational economic, you know, decisions that are being made, that ability to bring a biosimilar into market, there has to be incentive for that biosim manufacturer to have enough volume to be able to support that development and growth and move it forward. And we expect that when those happen, as Meal said, it normally creates a very interesting dynamic for us as that glide path of the reference price begins to move down from the branded pharmaceutical price into a biosimilar type of environment and our opportunity to use our scale and our patient census in order to negotiate best acquisition costs through that process. So, you know, we're going to continue to manage and learn from, you know, this experience that we've gone through. But we think the dynamics set up pretty well. And again, we're supportive biosimilar introductions. We think we've got a great platform. We've got an existing patient census in which we're managing. And the clinical competencies that we have that can wrap around those patients is really an important aspect of the value that we bring. Okay.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Let's talk about acute. You mentioned that being a key driver for you and it grew high single digits, for instance, in the second quarter. That's above the underlying market. what are some of the key drivers in acute or any subcategories to note on that front? And how much are you still benefiting from kind of your competitive positioning in terms of some competitor exits and what's durable into 2027?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah, I'll start at the high level. So we have lapped the competitive closure. So, you know, from that aspect, we don't believe that we're feeling much other than the goodwill that was created. As people exited the market, we stepped did and you know our team did a really great job of responding to those market dynamics that again weren't signaled broadly in the marketplace and yet our team stepped in and was that partner choice for discharge planners for hospitalist case managers in order to help to facilitate that transition out of the hospital into the home so our team did a lot of great work there in order to do that and again that developed those deeper relationships with the hospital health systems We continue to invest in the commercial resources of embedding nurses into more hospitals to be that partner of choice to identify patients that are stable enough to be discharged but still require an infusion as part of their care plan moving forward. And we're continuing to take a look at it from that perspective. As we look at the market in general, we're under-indexed in some markets. We look at an MSA level. I mentioned before, we like our national scale. and the consistency that we can drive across the country with that infrastructure, but health care is still local. And so that opportunity that we have to continue to deepen those relationships, invest in those relationships to capture more of that demand, and really drive that forward, I'd say there still is opportunities for that above-market growth from our perspective. That is a broad portfolio of products. Most of those are generic in nature, whether it's the antibiotics, nutrition support, or other products like inotropes and other things that support those acute discharges. And so there's opportunities for us to also look for procurement savings as well as we're thinking about ways that we can use that scale in order to make certain that we're getting the best landed costs from an acquisition for some of the inputs on the nutrition as well as the generic products in the antibiotic space.
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
And I would just add, you know, we talk about the fact that our business is a hustle business, as we talk about it. It's really patient by patient. You can really see that as part of the acute business, right? Because it tends to be, you know, our referral sources are with our hospitals and health systems that are out there. And these tend to be patients that are coming out of the hospital and still need treatments on a same-day discharge. So you get a phone call. You've got to react very quickly. You've got to be prepared to have a nurse, and you've got to have the infrastructure to have nursing, to have the therapy delivery to the patient often same day. And so that's why I think you see a lot of competitors have exited, but we've continued to groan because we've built out our capabilities. And with the foundation that we have that John talked about, it's you know we've really figured out the right way to succeed in that space which has been challenging I think for others so that's why we you know we look at it as further opportunity to gain additional share.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay and across IVIG or IG and neurology you know momentum has been building throughout 2026 I guess what's driving some of the strength and and how do you think about you know VivGuard or VivGuard Hart-Trulo and that impacting that portfolio?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah you know we had called out both first quarter and second quarter that we continue to see momentum within the IG neuro category broadly. And that's across a broad, not only formulary within the IG space and the subcutaneous IG space, but also some of the emerging products in neuro, whether it's cognitive impairment or other products within that. We had called out that fourth quarter of last year and really into the first quarter of this year, we continue to invest in the commercial resources in that group of our team that focuses around those call points of IG neurology, as well as in support of hospitals that have specialty capabilities within that space. The team continues to make really good headways in not only developing and deepening those relationships, but also serving those patients well. When you look at our patient satisfaction scores in the 90s, you look at our net promoter scores in the 70s, we're doing the things to not only put the patient at the center of everything that we do and really deliver that extraordinary care, but also wrapping around the service model in which we're getting high value from a promoter score basis based on the services that we provide. So, you know, as an organization, that has been an area of focus of kind of putting the team better division around their call points, those relationships that they're developing, and then their focus around really capturing more of that market demand. And then we have a team that focuses around the other specialty areas that really drives around those call points and the value proposition that we have for those therapies.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
And one more on the portfolio, Rare and Orphan, you mentioned adding new therapies in this category, some going live late 2026 and into 2027. I guess, can you provide, you know, more specifics around some of those newer programs, the disease states that they address, any sort of expected contribution? Will these move the needle for you? And your ability also to compete on that LDD for some of those LDD type of relationships.
John C. Rademacher, CEO
So I'll start at the highest level on the compete on the LDD and the platform and how unique it is when you think about what we're able to do. So the conversations that we have with our pharma partners as they're thinking about what is their go-to-market strategy, their channel management process, really is focused around access and whether that's your pharmacy infrastructure and your ability to reach and get to the patients. It's access in your payer relationships and the ability for them to have broad access for their product. It's the clinical capabilities of the enterprise, both at the pharmacy as well as at the point of care and it's your infrastructure to be able to serve in the home or in a facility and so when you look at what we have as an organization what we've built it is very unique in that platform and it is one that really resonates well with pharma through that process is they're making their selections of who to partner with especially when they have a medically complex patients a medical a complex therapy that may require additional manipulation or aseptic compounding to be able to dispense that into the marketplace, or that nursing network that can wrap around and provide consistent, high-quality care. So that is part of the way that we put the value proposition as we're engaging with pharma around what we can do and how we can drive that forward. And we think we're extremely well-positioned in order to do that. Then you start to take a look at the clinical competencies of the enterprise and then the way that we can manage those unique patients, not only in deploying training and clinical protocol at point of service so that our nurses can be trained and educated and qualified in order to do that, but also in the way that we're developing the care management plans in alignment with what the pharma partner wants to do. And so those are capabilities that really, again, continues to position us well and position us uniquely in the marketplace. We had called out that we had won a few limited distribution rare. The only thing I'll caution is they're a little bit choppy in the sense of a lot of that has to do with how the pharma manufacturer goes with their commercialization and their rollout. Some of it is the recruiting of patients on the service. And these are high-dollar products that normally carry a little bit lower margin within that process. And you'll see a ramp over time. So what we had called out, there were some delays, but we're seeing them move into portfolio today. And we expect we'll start to see that into the fourth quarter. But it won't be a material impact in 2026, but it will build then into 2027 and beyond. And we have a very fulsome pipeline of products that we are engaged in today that we're working with manufacturers to be a partner of choice as they're making decisions around their channel, their channel partners moving forward, and we believe that will continue into 27, 28, and beyond. Okay, great.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
So I want to ask a regulatory question. So just CMS proposed kind of to expand Medicare coverage for certain home infusion pumps and drugs. You said it was narrow, I think, as you previously commented. But how do you think about that multi-year opportunity if CMS were to meaningfully expand in terms of home infusion, in terms of the home infusion benefit? And also anything else to keep in mind from a regulatory standpoint that's really top of mind for you?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah, we've been consistent and a strong advocate of expanding access to the home for the elderly, right? And for those that are participating in Medicare fee-for-service programs. I mean, we have been, you know, one of the leaders in alignment with the National Home Infusion Association of really trying to drive this forward. You know at this point in time it's hard to hazard a guess of anything moving forward in Washington. Along those lines just it will require bipartisan support and that's a little bit elusive at this point in time. The product that you had mentioned and really the expansion there it does create a it's it's it's very narrow but it creates a unique opportunity for expansion with an infusion pump of products into the home through that process. Again, we're partnering in trying to support that product as we move forward, but we think it's narrow. But we think it does demonstrate the value of an expanded benefit for Medicare beneficiaries. We're using that to educate and expand the understanding of the value that can come there, and more importantly, the savings it can drive to the U.S. taxpayers in the sense of if you can be able to serve these patients with high quality of care in these lower-cost settings, there's a real benefit to Medicare and the Medicare fund associated with that by taking waste and cost out of the process.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay, okay. And then anything else from a regulatory perspective, whether it's MFN, IRA, that you're really, you know, focused on, and then also 340B exposure, if you could comment on that?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
Yeah, on the near-term horizon, there's nothing in the IRA that really has significant impact on our portfolio. As you're then starting to look with 340B again, a lot of conversations going on. Certainly, if pharma is putting some restrictive aspects around the way that they're looking at products that would be qualified for 340B. We support 340B today and we work with our health system partners along those lines in support of patients that could qualify for those savings. We pass those savings back to the hospital. So from an economic standpoint, we look at if there is a restriction in 340B and that moves in a different direction, it may create opportunities for those volumes to come our way where it may be done by a hospital specialty pharmacy that no longer can continue to do that. It may move in our direction. And we also continue to support as a as a contract pharmacy those 340B programs in order to provide those savings back to the health system for any qualified patient under the definition of the 340B program.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
But at this point, you don't see any sort of fluctuation there in terms of contribution?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
It's product by product that you're seeing in the news, but we don't see a significant change in the program, at least over the near term.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay. I want to talk about the footprint. You've added five new ambulatory infusion centers or clinics in the second quarter. You know, that still is a key component in terms of complementing your pharmacy model. And then you also have this, you know, 32 locations that you're with advanced practitioner capabilities. Can you talk about sort of how you think about the bigger picture view of sort of the footprint of option care longer term?
John C. Rademacher, CEO
When you look at the footprint of option care and kind of what we are designing, it really is focused around that ability to serve patients in the best setting possible and expanding the access more broadly. And so the program that we have in place and what we're driving to allows us to be focused around if a patient needs to be served in a facility, we can serve them in a facility either under the practice of pharmacy in one of our infusion suites, or we can serve them under the nurse practitioner model in one of our clinics. This is important because of some of the things that you just talked about, if it's a patient that could qualify for 340B, that ability to actually run it through the pharmacy and the pharmacy benefit allows that health system to be able to participate in the savings there. If it's a patient that doesn't have broad access and doesn't have a benefit for home infusion, it allows through the nurse practitioner model to really expand and to be able to address what is a market that cannot be addressed by the pharmacy. So we look at this omni-channel approach to be able to be better positioned to support the needs of the patient first, and then align it around the different mechanisms that are available, either through the practice of pharmacy or through the physician office fee schedule, which the nurse practitioner would qualify under, in looking for the best path for that patient and for the service.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay. And then lastly, can you talk a little bit about how you would characterize the capital deployment priorities overall? Near-term focus has shifted a little bit more towards internal investment and share repurchases with $150 million repurchased in the second quarter. How do we think about that going into the third quarter or what's embedded into the second half in terms of guidance? And then how do you compare expected returns from some of the organic investments, the repurchases and repurchase activity going forward, as well as M&A opportunities?
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
Sure. So we've, you know, historically, we've always prioritized internal organic investments as our first priority. There's a number of areas. John just talked about the ambulatory infusion clinics. That's been a big area. We've also talked about a number of the technology and technology advancements that we've been doing for the past several years as well. So those, and then commercial resources, et cetera. So that, that we find that that has a direct, much quicker impact to the business. And so that ends up continuing to be our priority there. We did more recently, but we've been doing this in the past few years where we've been buying back our shares. It's a, it's a positive way of return of capital to shareholders in a shareholder friendly way. And so I know a number of our investors, we get feedback on that and they've appreciated that. But at the same time, I don't want to lose sight of acquisitions. What we've been talking about the past few years have been more around adjacencies and tuck-ins, and when you think about the breadth of the portfolio that John and I have been talking about, whether that could be hospitals that are making decisions on can I run my outpatient center economically or not? Is that where we can continue to be a partner? The industry, the broader infusion industry, is also still quite fragmented and so there's a number of opportunities for us to go and take a look at assets in that fashion. So that continues to remain, you know, a strong contender on our list of how we think about capital allocation.
Erin Wright, Analyst — Morgan Stanley
Okay, great. Thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it.
Meenal A. Sethna, CFO
Yeah, great. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.