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                                                                   EXHIBIT 99.1



                    AMEDISYS SELLS OUTPATIENT SURGERY CENTER

                    DIVESTITURE STRATEGY FOR NON-CORE ASSETS
                                  NOW COMPLETE

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (September 17, 2001) - Amedisys, Inc. (OTC BB: "AMED"),
one of America's leading home health nursing companies, today announced that it
has sold its 56% interest in Hammond Surgical Care Center, L.C., d/b/a St.
Luke's SurgiCenter ("St. Luke's"), to Surgery Center of Hammond, L.L.C., an
affiliate of Universal Health Services, Inc., for approximately $1 million.

Net cash proceeds from the sale will be used to reduce the amount of debt
outstanding to NPF Capital, Inc., which was issued in the December 2000
refinancing of the Columbia/HCA debt. This divestiture represents the final step
in Amedisys' strategy to divest itself of all assets unrelated to its core home
health nursing business.

"We are pleased to announce the sale of our final surgery center," stated
William F. Borne, Chief Executive Officer of Amedisys, Inc. "Since the passage
of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, we have converted non-core assets into cash
of approximately $38 million which we invested to grow our home health nursing
services. All of our resources are now solely devoted to home health care
nursing, and we expect to participate fully in the anticipated growth of the
home nursing industry in coming years. Our strategic expansion plan anticipates
both internal and external growth initiatives."

Amedisys, Inc., a leading multi-regional provider of home health nursing
services, is headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Its common stock trades on
the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol "AMED".

This press release includes statements that may constitute "forward-looking"
statements, usually containing the words "believe", "estimate", "project",
"expect" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements inherently involve
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from the forward-looking statements. Factors that would cause or contribute to
such differences include, but are not limited to, continued acceptance of the
Company's products and services in the marketplace, competitive factors, changes
in government reimbursement procedures, dependence upon third-party vendors, and
other risks discussed in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company
undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes
after the date of this release.

    Additional information on this Company can be found on the World Wide Web

                             http://www.amedisys.com

                    For further information, please contact:

             John Joffrion, Senior Vice President at (225) 292-2031
                                       or
            RJ Falkner & Company, Inc., Investor Relations Counsel at
                          (800) 377-9893 or via e-mail

                              at info@rjfalkner.com