Urgent care center chain FastMed has signed another deal handing off many of its Southwest locations to a health system buyer.
On Tuesday, Scottsdale, Arizona-based HonorHealth announced that it had signed a deal to buy out 26 urgent care centers it had been running jointly in the state with FastMed. Terms of the deal, set to close during the summer, were not disclosed.
The nonprofit system said its purchase would add to the seven urgent care locations it runs independently and generally expand its operations across Arizona’s Maricopa County. The to-be-purchased locations will operate under the branding “HonorHealth Urgent Care,” according to the announcement.
“HonorHealth is committed to delivering high-quality, accessible care,” Todd LaPorte, CEO of HonorHealth, said in a release. “Through this acquisition, our patients will continue to have increased access to urgent care services that are closer to where they live and work. Now those services will be more tightly aligned and integrated with HonorHealth’s six acute-care hospitals, physician practices outpatient surgery centers and other network services.”
HonorHealth is among Arizona’s largest systems, employing more than 14,000 people and serving about 5 million across the greater Phoenix metro area.
Of note, the deal is the second major sell-off Raleigh, North Carolina-based FastMed announced in recent months.
Back in May, the company signed a deal to transfer 41 urgent cares across Texas’ Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston and El Paso markets to for-profit giant HCA Healthcare. Also set to close in the summer, it would increase HCA’s collection of 92 Texas urgent cares to 133—and its companywide count to more than 300.
The completion of both deals would represent FastMed’s total exit from both Texas and Arizona, though that would still leave the chain with more than 100 locations in Florida and North Carolina.
But FastMed also isn’t the only urgent care chain cutting deals with health systems. Just last week, NextCare and Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health—Texas’ largest nonprofit system—announced a partnership that would add 41 Houston, San Antonio and Abilene urgent care centers to the latter’s care network. The NextCare sites would be integrated into Baylor Scott & White Health’s broader care ecosystem.