Eastern Carolina Emergency Physicians Joins Emergency Care Partners

PENSACOLA, Fla., July 14, 2023 (Newswire.com) - Emergency Care Partners ("ECP"), a leading national provider of emergency medicine and emergency department management services for hospitals, announced today the completion of a strategic merger with Eastern Carolina Emergency Physicians ("ECEP"), a provider of outsourced emergency department management services in North Carolina.

The combined emergency medicine platform will service departmental operations at 49 locations, supported by a combined clinical workforce of approximately 900 physicians and mid-level providers, treating roughly 1.2 million patients annually. ECEP's physician partners will join as ECP shareholders, with Carrie Fales, M.D., serving as President of ECEP.

Bill Yarbrough, CEO of ECP, stated, "We are very excited to welcome ECEP and their providers as a regional physician group practice of Emergency Care Partners. Their physician partnership of more than 30 years and strong local health system relationship, paired with their reputation and strategic goals, make them an ideal addition to our national group of physician practices. We look forward to working with Dr. Fales and drawing on our resources and expertise to support their growth."

The combined group will continue a service-intensive approach to managing emergency departments while leveraging ECP's unique model of combining local physician equity partnerships and a differentiated clinical analytics platform to deliver the highest level of care to patients nationally.

"As the emergency healthcare space continues to evolve and expand, this new partnership allows ECEP to leverage ECP's infrastructure and resources to deliver the best quality care and patient experiences for our health system partners," said Dr. Carrie Fales.

ECP remains a majority physician-held business, with ECEP's physicians joining ECP's existing physician shareholders and partners. ECP is backed by financial sponsors, Varsity Healthcare Partners ("VHP") and Regal Healthcare Capital Partners ("Regal"). Massumi and Consoli LLP acted as legal adviser to ECP and VHP while Katten Muchin Rosenman acted as legal advisor to ECEP.

About Emergency Care Partners (ECP)

Headquartered in Pensacola, Florida, ECP is a leading provider of emergency medicine and emergency department management services for hospitals across the U.S. with current operations in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Florida, New York, Illinois, and North Carolina. ECP sees 1.2 million patient visits annually across operations at 49 sites of service, supported by a clinical workforce of 900+ physicians and mid-level providers. ECP employs a differentiated model relative to other platforms in the emergency medicine space, highlighted by the ability to maintain ownership through its physician partnership model (with over 60% of physicians being shareholders today) and the ability for regional/local groups to maintain their branding and clinical autonomy while still benefitting from ECP's significant back-office infrastructure. This critical infrastructure includes support for revenue cycle, financial and operational reporting, recruiting, training, compliance, contracting, scheduling and payroll, among other functions. ECP's affiliated medical groups also have access to the platform's proprietary analytics platform, which operatively interfaces in real time with each hospital's IT platform to track/report daily key performance indicators (KPI) in the emergency room. These include throughput, capacity utilization and clinical quality metrics and ancillary services reporting, which are used by ECP clinical/operational leaders and the hospitals themselves to drive quality service and outcomes and a consistent patient experience within each customer's emergency department. For more information, please visit www.ecp.net.

About Varsity Healthcare Partners

Varsity Healthcare Partners (VHP) is a lower middle-market private equity investment firm focused on partnering with founders, entrepreneurs and management teams to build leading healthcare services companies. VHP's tactical investment strategy emphasizes identifying and transacting with growth-seeking, provider-owned or founder-owned companies, leveraging VHP's developed "buy and build" playbook to drive significant operational, managerial enhancement early in the life of each platform investment, followed by a well-resourced aggressive and multidimensional growth plan. VHP's unique tactical investment playbook and strong track record is complemented by VHP's distinct organizational culture, emphasizing highly collaborative engagement, strong professional accountability, and a commitment to excellence in work product and team performance. For more information, please visit www.varsityhealthcarepartners.com.

About Regal Healthcare Capital Partners

Regal Healthcare Capital Partners ("Regal") is a New York-based growth equity and buyout firm focused exclusively on lower-middle market healthcare services companies. Regal partners with leading-edge healthcare entrepreneurs in need of financial investment and strategic, operational, and managerial expertise. Regal and its co-founders, David Kim, M.D., and Jon Santemma, bring a unique combination of operational and transactional experience to healthcare services companies to help realize their growth potential. For more information, please visit www.regalhcp.com 

Source: Emergency Care Partners