Home health firm loses fiscal fight.

Four years ago Chicken Soup Plus Home Health Care Inc. was a thriving Sacramento home health agency with annual revenue of $1.5 million.

Last month it stopped operating, the latest of 235 home health agencies in the state to go belly-up in two years following federal payment cuts from Medicare.

A separate local healthcare company, Chicken Soup Plus Corp., continues in business.

Chicken Soup Plus Home Health Care, which served only Medicare patients, filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on Dec. 17, listing assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities of between $500,001 and $1 million.

"I had to lay to rest an agency on which I'd spent 97 percent of my time since 1994," said Mary Baker, founder and president of …