American Family Care to acquire Doctors Express
American Family Care (AFC) plans to buy Doctors Express, the largest franchisor of urgent care centers in the U.S., in an acquisition that will make AFC the second largest privately held urgent care operator in the country.
Birmingham, Ala.-based AFC expects to complete the purchase on April 15, the company said in a press release issued on Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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By the end of 2013, with this acquisition and current growth plans, AFC anticipates that together with its affiliates, it will operate more than 140 facilities in 26 states.
Founded in 1982, AFC has 37 clinics in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Doctors Express, owned by an affiliate of The Ensign Group, has 63 urgent care centers in 25 states.
“As the nation’s healthcare model continues to rapidly change and the number of insured patients without a primary care physician increases, AFC and Doctors Express will meet that need and provide patients with easily accessible primary care, urgent care, family care and occupational medicine,” said D. Bruce Irwin, MD, AFC owner and founder, in the press release.
American Family Care plans to retain the Doctors Express name and function under its current franchise model. However, Doctors Express headquarters, currently located in Baltimore, will move to Birmingham, where AFC centralizes all its non-medical functions, including accounting, facilities and materials management, marketing, facility development, purchasing, claims processing, occupational medicine marketing and development, physician recruiting and IT.
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