Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare acquired 17 urgent care clinics from Urgent Care Group in North Carolina and South Carolina on June 2, continuing the for-profit system’s focus on growing its outpatient footprint.
The latest acquisitions increase HCA’s presence in South Carolina, which includes four acute care hospitals, a behavioral health hospital, more than 40 physician practice locations, eight freestanding ERs, 21 urgent care clinics and more than 75 care sites statewide.
The acquisitions are part of HCA’s strategy to reach 18 to 20 outpatient facilities per hospital by decade’s end. HCA now operates 2,600 outpatient sites — including hundreds of urgent care facilities — and 189 hospitals across 19 states and the United Kingdom, according to its website.
On HCA’s Jan. 27 earnings call, CEO Sam Hazen said that outpatient revenue as a percentage of total revenue was up year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025. One reason for that growth was that HCA is adding outpatient facilities at a greater pace than its adding hospitals to its portfolio. The system added about 100 facilities to its outpatient footprint in 2025.
“The combination of that, we think, is important to our overall network resiliency,” Mr. Hazen said. “By that we mean creating an environment where patients have easier access into the HCA Healthcare system, and our payers actually have better price points for their members, such that they can get into the system with urgent care or a physician clinic or an ambulatory surgery center in a manner that is most productive for them as a patient.”
Mr. Hazen said there is “significant capital” in the pipeline for outpatient development in 2026 and 2027.
In addition to the move in the Carolinas, HCA also added to its urgent care portfolio in Texas in 2026. In February, HCA’s Dallas-based Medical City Healthcare acquired 13 CommunityMed urgent care centers to serve under CareNow Urgent Care. The system’s CareNow Urgent Care subsidiary now operates more than 95 sites across Texas.
Other acquisitions in recent years include purchasing 41 urgent care centers in Texas from FastMed in 2023, and acquiring MD Now Urgent Care, a network of 59 urgent care centers in Florida, in 2022.
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