AmSurg is again casting for a giant merger partner. This time it's Envision Healthcare Holdings, a rival physician staffing and healthcare services company. The Wall Street Journal reports a deal could be announced as early as this week.
Nashville-based AmSurg was largely an owner and operator of ambulatory surgery centers until it bought physician staffing giant Sheridan Healthcare in 2014 for more than $2 billion. In 2015, AmSurg made about $1 billion of acquisitions, mostly buying practices of anesthesiologists, neonatologists, radiologists and emergency physicians who serve in hospitals.
Greenwood, Colo.-based Envision is a big player in physician staffing, as well as ambulance services.
Last year, AmSurg failed in its bid to acquire a big fish. TeamHealth, the nation's largest physician staffing company, rejected an offer of more than $5 billion. AmSurg CEO Chris Holden said week that the industry will one day create a supergroup of outsourced physicians and that the TeamHealth bid was AmSurg's effort to do so. He made the comment during an analyst conference last week, just hours before word leaked out of the AmSurg-Envision talks.
Analysts have said the benefits of an Amsurg-Envision merger would be relatively modest. It would create some cross-selling opportunities for Envision to win emergency-room physician staffing contracts in hospitals where AmSurg has a presence and for AmSurg to seek anesthesiology business where Envision is strong.
