Two major healthcare provider organizations will be ringing in the New Year by breaking away from Atrius Health. Worcester-based Reliant Medical Group and Southboro Medical Group have announced their merger plans will take effect on January 1, 2015. The two will merge together into a new organization that will keep each group’s identity separate. Once the merger is complete, they will have formed a healthcare provider that can offer the services of some 300 doctors along with more than 2,000 other healthcare professionals to serve more than a quarter of a million patients living throughout Central Massachusetts and the MetroWest region.
Formerly known as the Fallon Clinic, Reliant has 20 locations employing 2100 individuals throughout greater Worcester. The smaller Southboro Medical Group has only about one-fourth the number of employees spread throughout its four offices, located in Framingham, Westborough, Southborough and Milford. Each organization plans on being known by its current name rather than having the merger create a new name or identity. Reliant and Southboro officials first announced plans for the merger, the details of which have yet to be released, at the end of summer. After Atrius Health seriously considered pursuing the merger of all of its network of six medical groups, Southboro and Reliant decided it was best to establish their own merger free and clear of Atrius.
In early 2014, Reliant premiered a medical office at the main medical center operated by Southboro, which gave the two healthcare providers a small taste of what it would be like to be in permanent partnership together. Southboro Medical has already been supplying one of the Reliant offices in Central Massachusetts with the services of one of its physicians to assist in patient care there.
