Ardent Health is making good on its ambitions to grow its footprint in ambulatory care through acquisitions.

The for-profit system kicked off 2025 by buying 18 urgent care clinics across New Mexico and Oklahoma from NextCare Urgent Care.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The purchase follows Ardent Health’s acquisition of nine additional urgent care centers in its East Texas and Topeka, Kansas markets in 2024.

Ardent Health went public in July, raising $192 million in its IPO with plans to use the proceeds for working capital and to fund acquisitions, with a particular focus on expanding ambulatory services and outpatient sites of care. The company runs 30 acute care hospitals in six states, with 18 of those hospitals operated under joint ventures with other healthcare providers.

"This has been a great opportunity for us to continue to expand on what we had stated when we went public, which was continuing to invest in our markets and making it easier for consumers and patients to be able to access our health system," Ardent Health President and CEO Marty Bonick said in an exclusive interview with Fierce Healthcare about the NextCare Urgent Care clinic acquisitions.

"Our belief is that patients don't live in a point solution universe. We've got people that have chronic conditions, comorbidities and they're going to need different types of healthcare at different points of their lifecycle. We think urgent care is a great access point into our system. Not everybody needs hospitalization or ER care, and so urgent care is a really great alternative for people that have lower-level urgent needs and don't necessarily need to make a primary care visit for," Bonick said.

Many hospitals are investing in ambulatory and urgent care facilities to meet the growing demand for outpatient care services.

These additional access points also bring new patients into the Ardent Health network while creating enhanced capacity to serve patients within the system's clinics and emergency departments, Bonick noted.

"We believe it fits into a continuum of care that when patients come to that urgent care, if they don't have a primary care physician, we can introduce them to our primary care network, or our specialists. If you were to come into an urgent care and and you broke your wrist, you might need an orthopedic follow-up, you might need a surgery. If you're just in a free-standing urgent care, you're sort of left on your own or you receive referrals or recommendations, but we can make sure you get in the system of care. If you don't have a primary care physician, we can hook you up with that as well, and make sure that you're getting the preventative care that you need across your lifetime. We think it's just a great way to provide care on people's terms, where and when they need it most," he said.

NextCare is one of the largest providers of urgent care and occupational medical services in the U.S., operating more than 179 clinics in 12 states, according to its website.

The Ardent Health transaction includes six urgent care clinics in New Mexico, which will operate as part of Lovelace Health System, and 12 clinics in Oklahoma that will become part of Hillcrest HealthCare System. The acquisition significantly expands Ardent Health’s ambulatory operations in both markets. Through its subsidiaries, the company currently operates five hospitals and 25 sites of care in New Mexico, and eight hospitals and 57 sites of care in Oklahoma.

Along with New Mexico and Oklahoma, the healthcare provider operates hospitals and other sites of care in Idaho, Kansas, Texas and New Jersey.

In 2021, Ardent Health, when it was still a private company, completed an implementation of a single system-wide instance of Epic’s electronic health record technology throughout all of its facilities. The health system called out this tech capability in its S-1 when it filed to go public, noting that it's a key differentiator and makes the provider "a more attractive partner for emerging technology providers and facilitates physician use of novel technology."

"We believe we are currently the only large investor-owned company that has embraced Epic and expect this platform will be highly beneficial to us as the industry moves further into value-based care models," the hospital operator said in its S-1 form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ardent's system-wide use of Epic also provides uniformity of data and facilitates interconnected patient care across the continuum of its clinics, hospitals and other care settings, including the home, executives said.

The acquisition of nine urgent care centers in its East Texas and Kansas markets last year marks a "preamble of what's to come," Bonick said.

"All of our physicians, clinics and office locations, our outpatient locations, our hospitals, are on this one instance of Epic. As we integrate NextCare, we'll be adding them onto our Epic platform, and that gives people the opportunity to schedule care, when and where they need it the most, and we'll be able to have insights on those patients," he said.

In its East Texas market, with the acquisition of additional urgent care clinics, about 30% of the patients that are coming to those facilities are brand-new to Ardent Health, he noted. "That's an opportunity to engage with those patients and we know that a smaller double-digit percentage of those patients are going to need follow-up care, so we're able to schedule them into a specialist before they leave that urgent care, or if they need a lab test or an imaging study or a procedure done, we're going to be able to help them and just make that seamless continuum of care for them, so they don't have to go to "Dr. Google" and look for that next referral when they need it," Bonick said.

The company reported $5.4 billion in total revenue and $129 million of net income in 2023. In the third quarter of 2024, Ardent Health pulled in $1.45 billion in revenue, 5% over the prior year, and net income of $26 billion. The company expects to report between $5.8 billion to $5.875 billion in total revenue for the year, according to its latest guidance. It also expects to bring in $156 million to $176 million in profit for the year.