EmCare Holdings Inc., or EmCare, was an American provider of physician practice management services for emergency departments, inpatient physician services or hospitals, acute care surgery, trauma and general surgery, women's and children's services, radiology / teleradiology programs and anesthesiology services. Founded in 1972, EmCare had more than 1,000 contracts with client hospitals in 42 states.

Laidlaw Laidlaw (), organized as Laidlaw International, Inc. (with corporate headquarters in Naperville, Illinois) was the largest provider of intercity bus services, contract public transit and paratransit, and contract school bus service in both ...

acquired EmCare in 1997. In 2004, Laidlaw sold EmCare and

American Medical Response American Medical Response, Inc. (AMR) is a medical transportation company in the United States that provides and manages community-based medical transportation services, including emergency (911), non-emergency and managed transportation, rotary ...

to Onex. Onex formed Emergency Medical Services Corporation as the parent of its two acquisitions. EMSC went public in December of that year. In 2011, EMSC was acquired by

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is an American private equity company. It is one of the oldest private equity investment firms in the world. Founded in 1978, CD&R has managed the investment of more than $30 billion in approximately 90 businesses, repre ...

. On June 11, 2013, EMSC changed names to

Envision Healthcare Envision Healthcare is an American healthcare company and national hospital-based physician group. History In December 2016, Envison and AMSURG merged, and shortly thereafter the company's stock replaced Legg Mason in the S&P 500 index. In 2 ...

and went public as EVHC. AMR and Evolution Health also are a part of Envision Healthcare. The company had been criticized for encouraging the practice of "out-of-network billing", which causes patients to be billed directly and at a much higher rate for medical services. This practice is particularly frequent in emergency room visits, in which the patient has little to no ability to choose their doctors. Researchers found that in half of 16 hospitals that used EmCare's services, out-of-network billing rose quickly and precipitously, and in the other half the out-of-network was already near 100% and did not decrease. In a larger sample of 194 hospitals in which EmCare handled billing, the average out-of-network billing rate was 62 percent, far higher than the national average. In contrast, when Emcare competitor TeamHealth took over billing in other hospitals, there was a much smaller increase in out-of-network billing. EmCare Holdings Inc., wa
purchased by Envision Physician Services
and is no longer in business.

References

{{Reflist Companies based in Dallas 1972 establishments in Texas Health care companies established in 1972 Medical outsourcing companies of the United States

See also

References