NextCare Acquires 9 North Carolina Area Urgent Care Centers

NextCare acquires Doctors Urgent Care Centres (D.U.C.C.) from Beverly Enterprises, Inc.

(PRWEB) May 6, 2005 -- NextCare Urgent Care has expanded its national group practice with its acquisition of North Carolina based, Doctors Urgent Care Centre making NextCare the worlds largest provider of urgent care services, treating more than 500,000 patients a year.

NextCare Urgent Care purchased nine (9) free standing urgent care centers from Beverly Enterprises, Inc., a leading provider of healthcare services to the elderly in the United States.

Beverly purchased the urgent care clinics in 1998 as a strategy to support its outpatient rehabilitation practices. The outpatient rehabilitation clinics were subsequently sold to Benchmark Medical in 2003, but the urgent care clinics remained with the parent company. Recognizing that urgent care was no longer part of its core business of providing eldercare services, Beverly elected to divest the Doctors Urgent Care Centres, resulting in a sale to NextCare Urgent Care, effective February 24, 2005. NextCare retained the services of Ladenburg Thalmann to assist in financing the transaction.

We are pleased to announce that we will retain the local identity of Doctors Urgent Care Centre, along with the local management team and the relationship with the existing physician providers. These clinics have been providing quality care to the members of their communities for many years and we saw no reason to make changes in the clinical or administrative leadership," said Laurel Stoimenoff, VP of Operations for NextCare Urgent Care.

Doctors Urgent Care Centres 20 year history and excellent clinical reputation made this an attractive and strategic first acquisition for NextCare," said John Shufeldt, MD, Founder and CEO of NextCare Urgent Care.

NextCare continues to look for other expansion opportunities through partnerships with local hospitals, physician groups and other retail providers in select target markets.

Many hospitals recognize the difficulty in managing their own urgent care centers and look at outsourcing as the ideal option. NextCare is a natural partner given its 11 year history of identifying, testing and implementing best practices in the delivery of urgent care services.

The urgent care concept is beginning to catch on nationwide in reaction to overuse of hospital emergency rooms by patients without life-threatening conditions. Urgent care centers are a cost effective way to treat patients who dont need to be seen in the emergency room," Shufeldt said.

About NextCare Urgent Care. NextCare Urgent Care is the worlds largest privately owned provider of urgent care and occupational medical services, known for bringing together service driven health care and innovative medical technology to the delivery of medicine. NextCare operates 21 urgent care facilities between Arizona and North Carolina, providing a wide array of medical services to individuals with non-life threatening medical conditions.

For more information, visit www.nextcare.com or contact KellyAnn Kimble at (480)283-1740.

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