The Ensign Group announced that its urgent-care subsidiary Immediate Clinic Healthcare has agreed to sell urgent-care franchise Doctors Express to American Family Care.
Mission Viejo, Calif.-based Ensign, whose subsidiaries operate skilled-nursing, rehabilitative-care services, hospice care, assisted-living and urgent-care companies, added Doctors Express to its balance sheet just last year when Immediate Clinic Healthcare purchased the Towson, Md.-based franchise on March 1.
The new deal with American Family Care in Birmingham, Ala., is expected to be effective little more than a year later, on April 15, though no financial terms of this transaction have been released. American Family Care currently operates 37 urgent- and primary-care clinics in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
Despite the divestiture, Ensign executives reaffirmed in a news release their commitment to providing urgent-care services, particularly in Seattle. Immediate Clinic Healthcare already owns and operates five clinics in the Seattle area and plans to add additional facilities in that market.
“While we continue to view urgent care as an important addition to the sub-acute, skilled nursing, physical therapy, home health, hospice, assisted living and other services our various businesses provide, the considerable investment and time required to further develop the franchise model has led us to conclude that we can better use our resources by developing additional Immediate Clinic centers,” Christopher Christensen, president and CEO of Ensign, said in a release.
At the end of 2012, Ensign owned 86 facilities and was operating 22 under long-term leases. The parent company reported revenue of $824.7 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2012, with net income of $40.6 million.
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