With its acquisition of PhysicianOne Urgent Care clinics, Freedom Health Holdings, a multi-unit AFC operator, doubles its unit count. The buy-and-convert approach is part of AFC’s overall development strategy as it nears 400 locations nationwide.
As a military veteran, Dave Adams is driven to serve his community as an entrepreneur and found a way to do so as an American Family Care franchisee. Now, he’s doubling down on that effort.
A few weeks ago, Adams’ company, Freedom Health Holdings, which owns and operates five AFC units in Boston, closed on a deal to acquire five clinics from a different brand. The process is now underway to transition five PhysicianOne Urgent Care facilities to AFC clinics, each offering walk-in urgent care, occupational medicine and more.
AFC franchisee Dave Adams
“We were looking at opportunities out there to acquire existing urgent care walk-in medical units and we came across PhysicianOne,” Adams said. “They held themselves to very high clinical standards, and that was really helpful for us in determining to acquire them as an entity.”
The doubling of Adams’ operation with AFC comes about 13 years after he started with the brand. A former Marine, Adams first went into commercial real estate as a career, but felt something was missing.
“I was an Eagle Scout and served the community. Then in the Marine Corps, I was representing something special, wearing the uniform of my country,” Adams said. “I felt like I was giving back to the greater good. Then I went to corporate America, and I was no longer feeling that connection. I wanted to feel that again, to do well financially but do good by the community.”
That’s when he discovered the opportunity with AFC, and to help build the operation, he partnered with fellow veteran Dr. Kristina Orio. Formerly with the U.S. Air Force, Orio is now the chief medical officer for Freedom Health.
Once the new locations are fully converted, Orio said combined they will have capacity for 100,000 patient visits per year with an average door-to-door time of about 38 minutes. To reach that many patients, Orio said building trust in more of the Boston market will be key, but is doable because of the high standards they’ve set.
Freedom Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kristina Orio
“When they come in and see the quality of the experience and the commitment to good urgent care that they’ll be getting from our providers, I think that they are likely to come back as repeat patients when they need to,” Orio said.
“Our first objective is to communicate and reeducate the consumers who have been using these existing locations in the past that not only are we still offering really high-quality care, but we’re going to do it more efficiently,” Adams said. “We’re going to do it in a more affordable manner with great accessibility and extended hours.”
The five additional Boston clinics will bring the number of AFC units to 25 in the market and 35 in Massachusetts. In total, AFC, founded in 1982, has nearly 400 clinics.
Jeremy Morgan, the former CEO of WellBiz Brands who joined AFC as chief executive in January, said acquiring and converting existing clinics is becoming a common part of the brand’s expansion plans.
“We’re pretty excited about this clinic conversion strategy,” Morgan said. “We’ve had some success with this playbook before. We had a similar situation with a group of franchisees acquiring seven facilities in Philadelphia in 2023.
“In this one, Dave knew the PhysicianOne folks and we had heard about them being open to selling,” Morgan said. “He brought it to us, asked if it was something that would make sense for the system and we ultimately approved it.”
In other cases, Morgan said, it’s the other way around with a local bank or broker reaching out with clinics available in a market. As the brand is still opening company-owned locations, Morgan added that AFC determines whether it’s best to convert clinics themselves or pass the opportunity to a franchisee in the area.
AFC CEO Jeremy Morgan
For the medical field, Morgan said the franchise model is an especially important factor.
“There are a lot of large regional players in this category and they’re not usually able to build the same rapport with the community as when you have people local and, on the ground,” Morgan said. “Dave and Kristina are just great examples of operators who do that extremely well.
“They’re on a first-name basis with their providers and they know who all of their medical receptionists are,” said Morgan. “They know on a Monday morning if there was a flu spike, or if one location had higher patient volumes. I think that gets to the strength of franchising in general. You get that big brand benefit with a local operator who knows what’s going on.”
Morgan noted the brand’s 2025 franchise disclosure document will include a more comprehensive conversion guide for independent owners who want to join AFC and for existing owners who are looking to grow. The initial investment, depending on a new build or a conversion, ranges from $145,000 to $900,000.
AFC opened about 130 franchise locations over the past three years. Its systemwide sales, meanwhile, declined between 2021 and 2023. Sales hit $1.62 billion in 2021, according to Franchise Times Top 400 data, and fell to just over $1 billion in 2023.
