One of the Dayton area’s biggest home health care providers has acquired a primary care practice to expand its services.

Home health agency Black Stone said Monday it acquired Advanced Geriatric Education & Consulting, an area primary care practice that provides home calls. Advanced Geriatric Education is a practice of nurse practitioners that specializes in home-based medical care for the elderly, according to Black Stone.

Black Stone currently offers home care, assisted care and skilled nursing care.

Home care is a rapidly growing segment of Dayton’s health care industry. Home care companies are growing to meet the demands of an aging population that prefers to stay in their homes as long as possible, and a population that’s aging fast. Patient volumes at local home care companies have grown 40 to 60 percent since 2009, a previous Dayton Daily News analysis found.

This is Black Stone’s 10th acquisition since 2007, but its first acquisition of a company that’s not directly in the home care business.

“Health care is changing and we want to part of the change,” said David Tramontana, Black Stone chief executive officer.

New health care initiatives are focused on cutting costs and improving quality. For example, hospitals’ Medicare reimbursement rates are now penalized for high readmission rates of patients with certain conditions. Ohio next year will start a new program to coordinate Medicare and Medicaid coverage for people eligible for both programs, typically low income seniors.

“We’re trying to position Black Stone to be a value proposition for our patients and for those who pay for our services,” Tramontana said.

Advanced Geriatric’s six employees will join the 1,300 employees company-wide who work at Black Stone. The acquisition price was not disclosed.

Advanced Geriatric, founded in 2008, has offices in Loveland and the Dayton area. The new division with Advanced Geriatric will be called House Calls by Black Stone.

Black Stone serves the Dayton, Cincinnati and Columbus markets. Tramontana said a location will open in the northwest part of the state by the first of the year. Geographic coverage in Ohio is important to the company, he said.

“The last five years we’ve grown to kind of prepare to make the organization really more sustainable for the long term,” he said. “Over the next 12 to 24 months, we would look for acquisitions that would either expand our geographic footprint or give us some economies of scale.”

Black Stone was founded in Dayton in 1996 and has a main local office on Kettering Boulevard. It is now headquartered in Cincinnati.