Atlas Healthcare Partners has landed two joint ventures so far in 2026 — one with Prisma Health, one with Fairview Health Services — continuing a run of deals that has made the Phoenix-based ASC operator a sought-after partner among nonprofit health systems building out ASC strategies.
Greenville, S.C.-based Prisma Health and Atlas formed a joint venture to develop and operate more than 15 ASCs across South Carolina, southeastern Tennessee and surrounding regions, while Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services and Atlas formed one to build a network of ASCs across Minnesota and surrounding regions. Those deals follow earlier joint ventures Atlas struck in 2024 with Newark, Del.-based ChristianaCare and Tacoma, Wash.-based MultiCare Health.
The pattern behind those deals, according to Atlas CEO Aric Burke, is deliberate. Atlas forms the joint venture with a health system first, builds a market strategy second and then starts buying and building centers, rather than assembling a portfolio of physician-owned ASCs and shopping it to health systems afterward.
“We’ve really built our entire company around being a not-for-profit health system partner,” Mr. Burke told Becker’s. “I’ve invested into understanding what health systems need from an ASC standpoint and focused heavily on the strategy for a market.”
That strategy starts with a handful of questions Atlas works through with every health system partner: where the system needs access points, how much procedure room capacity it needs and what service line coverage it needs. Atlas’ position, Mr. Burke told Becker’s, is that a health system first needs to cover all major surgical and procedural service lines, then layer in physician alignment, how the network accommodates both employed and independent physicians.
“Atlas is the execution arm that helps [health systems] buy and build centers and provides turnkey management services,” Mr. Burke said. “Our entire model is based on working with large health systems.”
Atlas’ health system partners are also able to buy equity into Atlas itself, which gives them a governance role on the management company board and a stake in the company’s growth. “We don’t have that private equity pressure of an exit,” Mr. Burke said. “We don’t have a competitor that might be competing against them as our owner.”
The trade-off, Mr. Burke said, is exclusivity. Atlas is the exclusive joint venture ASC partner of Banner Health, MultiCare, Corewell Health, ChristianaCare, Prisma Health and Fairview, committing to one health system partner per market. That caps how many markets Atlas can be in at once, but keeps the incentives aligned.
Atlas now operates 49 ASCs across seven states, performing more than 117,000 annual cases and generating $407 million in annual ASC revenue. Its target is 15 joint ventures with health systems nationally, and Mr. Burke said the company expects to reach 10 by the end of the year, with three more in the works.
Mr. Burke tied the acceleration to site neutrality. As government and commercial payers move toward paying the same rate regardless of setting, outpatient procedures still performed on hospital campuses are likely to migrate to ASCs whether or not the health system controls where that volume lands.
“If you wait until all your cases are getting pressured out, it’s going to be too late to go recapture,” Mr. Burke said. “You’re going to lose a lot of business in the process.”
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
