After a nearly 20-year-old affiliate relationship, Ferrell-Duncan Clinic Inc. this month moved under the umbrella of the CoxHealth system.
The clinic, which practices in more than 20 specialties and subspecialties at 1001 E. Primrose St., is now governed by a 14-member group - including 12 physicians - under the Cox Medical Group name. No money changed hands in the move that became effective Jan. 1, said CoxHealth spokeswoman Michelle Leroux.
“The new group is key to unifying the health system, helping provide a smoother patient experience and adapt to changing payment models. Cox Medical Group will help in offering patients a single chart and single bill,” Leroux said via email. “We’ve had a clinically integrated health system where physicians work together to care for patients, but physician groups were in many cases independent corporations.
“This integration means physicians are now under one umbrella, the Cox Medical Group, that helps them work as a team for patients.”
In an interview earlier this week with Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Emily Letterman, CoxHealth General Counsel Charity Elmer called the move a “corporate restructure which involved purchasing” Ferrell-Duncan Clinic Inc.
“That was a big transaction,” she said. “We brought Ferrell-Duncan fully into the CoxHealth system. Ferrell-Duncan Clinic Inc. used to be owned by the physicians, and now it’s owned by a CoxHealth subsidiary.”
Ferrell-Duncan and CoxHealth cemented their affiliate relationship in 1996, when nonphysican staff of the clinic became Cox employees, according to
CoxHealth.com.
Founded as a general surgery practice in 1945 by Drs. Thomas Ferrell and Robert Duncan, Ferrell-Duncan Clinic now employs around 100 physicians working out of roughly 180,000 square feet, according to its
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