Chicago-headquartered WellNow Urgent Care has acquired Physicians Immediate Care — a move that will boost the company’s number of locations to more than 180 across six states.
The deal closed July 1, and financial terms were not publicly disclosed, said WellNow spokeswoman Annie Keller.
WellNow opened its first location in New York in 2012 and had 128 locations, including more than half a dozen in Illinois, before the recent acquisition. WellNow is part of TAG — The Aspen Group, also headquartered in Chicago — which is known for its Aspen Dental centers.
Physicians Immediate Care has 55 locations in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
There are no plans to change the names of the Physician Immediate Care centers at the moment, but WellNow will evaluate that next year, Keller said.
WellNow and The Aspen Group have been growing rapidly in recent years. The new acquisition is the latest in a string of deals for WellNow, which acquired MASH Urgent Care in 2018, Hometown Urgent Care & Occupational Health in 2020 and Primary Urgent Care in 2022.
In recent years, the urgent care industry has been booming, with the centers appealing to patients by offering hours that are longer than most traditional medical practices, walk-in appointments and lower costs than going to the emergency room. There were 9,279 urgent care centers in the U.S. as of 2019, up from 6,400 in 2014, according to the Urgent Care Association.
WellNow competes with other chains of urgent care centers, as well as larger, traditional health systems which have also expanded their urgent care offerings to attract patients seeking immediate, more convenient care.
The Aspen Group now supports more than 1,200 independently owned practice locations in 45 states through Aspen Dental, ClearChoice, WellNow and ChapterSM. Under its Aspen Dental model, dentists own the practices, but the company handles administrative and training services and the practices are branded as Aspen Dental.
