Company Run by Ex-PacifiCare Executives Acquired [Orange County Business Journal (CA)]

Scott, Vaccaro Run APS, Snapped Up for $227.5M

HEALTHCARE

Two ex-executives ofthe former PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. who now work back East are set to get a new parent company.

Universal American Corp., a publicly traded insurance company in Rye Brook, N. Y, announced this month it would acquire White Plains, N.Y.-based disease management and specialty healthcare company APS Healthcare for $227.5 million.

APS is led by Chief Executive Greg Scott, formerly PacifiCare Health Systems' chief financial officer, as well as President and Chief Operating Officer Jerry Vaccaro, former chief executive of PacifiCare Behavioral Health Inc.

The pair will continue to run the business after Universal American buys APS - -which had more than $300 million in 2011 revenue - offering care coordination, utilization review and behavioral health services designed to help customers reduce healthcare costs. APS has 400 customers, including Medicaid, state and local governments, health plans, employers and labor union healthcare trust groups. It is one of the largest specialty healthcare services companies in the U.S.

PacifiCare is now part of Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group Inc., which bought it in 2005 for $9 billion. UnitedHealth has more than 3,000 workers in Cypress, PacifiCare's former base.

Vaccaro touted APS' "ability to improve care for those who are the sickest" in a 2011 interview with trade publication Inside Healthcare.

The percentage of a statewide population that such patients represent may be only be about 5%, but their care could add up to 50% of healthcare costs, officials estimate.

"That's not something to take lightly," Vaccaro said. "Improving that small percentage can have a profound impact."

Scott and Vaccaro joined APS in 2007, when that company was recapitalized by GTCR LLC, a Chicago private equity firm. Funds affiliated with GTCR own APS.

Executive Team

There's a newly expanded senior management team at American Healthcare Investors LLC, a Newport Beach-based commercial real estate investment firm that serves as the cosponsor of Griffin- American Healthcare REIT H, a previous unit of Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co.

Newly appointed executives include: Stefan Oh, senior vice president of acquisitions; Chris Rooney, senior vice president of asset management; Shannon Johnson, senior vice president of finance and accounting; Trevor Drummond, vice president of finance and accounting; and Cora Lo, senior vice president, securities counsel.

Oh formerly was senior vice president of Grubb & Ellis Healthcare REIT II.

Rooney was vice president of asset management at Grubb's investment management subsidiary.

And Johnson was chief financial officer of two other public real estate investment trusts.

Drummond, prior to joining American, had served as REIT controller at Grubb, originally for that company's first healthcare real estate investment trust, and Lo was assistant secretary ofthe REIT.

American and Los Angeles-based real estate investor Griffin Capital Corp. combined to form Griffin- American, and Grubb said in November it was turning over management of the trust to Griffin and American.

New Contracts

Mission Viejo-based Auxilio Inc., which helps hospitals and other healthcare providers cut their dependence on paper records, has signed a contract with Catholic Healthcare East of Newtown Square, Pa. The deal calls for Auxilio to work with 19 of Catholic Healthcare East's hospitals ranging from Maine to Florida.

Auxilio said that the Catholic Healthcare East contract was worth more than $40 million and is expected to save the hospital operator more than $12 million. Auxilio will, among other things, work with Catholic Healthcare East's information technology unit to prepare for electronic health record compliance and implementation.

Separately Auxilio said it signed a five-year, $5 million deal with Memorial Health System of Colorado Springs, Colo. Memorial has three hospitals with 650 beds between them, 950 affiliated doctors and more than 4,100 employees.

Medical Group Shareholders

Disc Sports & Spine Center, a medical group, has opened a facility in Newport Beach with 14 doctor shareholders.

The founding shareholders are neurosurgeons Robert Bray Jr.; Amir Vokshoor; Richard Kim; Christopher Duma; Burak Ozgur; orthopedic surgeons John Regan, Sanjay Khurana and Hooman Melamed; anesthesiologists Michael Port and Joseph Barrows; pain management doctors Glenn Lipton and Medhat Mikhael; sports medicine chiropractor Joseph Horrigan; and Sarah Miller, a physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor.

Disc's Newport Beach facility, located on Jamboree Road in the Bayview Corporate Center, is modeled after the group's existing center in Marina del Rey. It has an outpatient surgical center, a spinal care and pain management clinic, and a soft tissue and rehabilitation center. Plans are to add a diagnostic imaging center.

Bits and Pieces

Gene Rapisardi is the new president and general manager for health insurer Cigna Corp.'sSouthern California and Nevada region. Rapisardi, who splits his time between Irvine and Glendale, replaces Chris De Rosa, who is now Philadelphia-based Cigna's west region president. . . . Irvine-based NeoMatrix LLC, a company that makes a breast cancer diagnostic tool, said that France Dixon Heifer is its new chief executive and president, replacing John Stroh. Helfer, a serial medical device entrepreneur, also founded implant maker Pegasus Biologies Inc., which was eventually bought by Minnesota-based Synovis Life Sciences Inc.

Disc Sports & Spine Center: newly opened Newport Beach facility

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