Hernando County Emergency Physicians Joins Emergency Care Partners

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Oct. 22, 2021 - PRLog -- PENSACOLA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE (https://www.businesswire.com/))--Emergency Care Partners ("ECP"), a leading national provider of emergency medicine and emergency department management services for hospitals, today announced the completion of a strategic merger with Hernando County Emergency Physicians ("HCEP"), a provider of outsourced emergency department management services in Florida.

The combined emergency medicine platform will service departmental operations at 40 locations, supported by a combined clinical workforce of approximately 700 physicians and mid-level providers, treating roughly 1,000,000 patients annually. HCEP's physician partners will join as ECP shareholders, with Roderick Bennett, M.D. serving as President of HCEP and Onier Villareal, M.D. serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer.

Bill Yarbrough, CEO of ECP, stated, "We are very excited to welcome HCEP and their providers as a regional physician group practice of Emergency Care Partners. Their strong physician partnerships and local health system relationships paired with their complementary strategic goals and regional footprint make them an ideal addition to our national group. We look forward to working with Drs. Bennett and Villareal and leveraging our deep bench of expertise to support their growth and expansion across the state."

The combined business will continue the service-intensive approach to managing emergency departments implemented by both companies prior to their combination, leveraging ECP's unique model of combining local physician equity partnerships and differentiated analytics platform to deliver the highest level of care to consumers across the region.

"As the emergency healthcare space continues to evolve and expand, the timing couldn't be better to partner with Bill and the rest of the ECP team," said Dr. Roderick Bennett, President of HCEP. "This new partnership allows us to leverage ECP's infrastructure and resources to deliver the best quality care and patient experiences for our health system partners."

ECP remains a majority physician-held business, with HCEP'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").

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP acted as legal adviser to ECP and VHP, while Roetzel & Andress acted as legal advisors to HCEP.

About Emergency Care Partners
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 Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. For more information please visit: www.ecp.net