Merciful Anghels joins Oxford HealthCare system

The company, founded in 1997 by Jeri Anghel as Anghel’s Home Health Care LLC, was a private-duty provider, meaning patients paid for their own care. Merciful Anghels owner Shallina Bowers, who became involved with the company in April, said the choice to join Oxford in August was made with her company’s clients in mind. Bowers owned the company for five months before joining Oxford as health care services manager.

“We were working in some of the same homes with Oxford, and they were such a larger company that I really felt that we would be able to offer our employees more security and our clients more options, because, of course, we didn’t take Medicaid or Medicare,” Bowers said. “We were really able to diversify our services and offer everyone more security.”

Bowers said she and her employees are now employed with CoxHealth-owned Oxford, though both she and Oxford President Karen Thomas declined to discuss details of how many people were employed with Merciful Anghels or how many clients they served. The companies did not exchange assets.

According to information provided by the company for Springfield Business Journal’s 2004 Book of Lists, Merciful Anghels had 60 employees who cared for patients and made approximately 8,000 patient visits per month as of Feb. 18.

Thomas said the change made sense for both parties.

“We had formed a relationship with them by caring for some of the same clients,” she said. “We offer some services that they don’t, and over the course of time in talking to (Bowers), we interviewed and hired their staff, and their clients were given a choice and chose Oxford as their provider.”

Thomas added that Merciful Anghels’ employees are a welcome addition to the Oxford staff.

“In talking to (Bowers), she did see opportunities for everyone,” Thomas said. “We saw it as a win-win also, because they had good employees and good staff.”