Reliant, Southboro Medical to merge Jan. 1

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By Rick Saia

Reliant Medical Group of Worcester and Southboro Medical Group will become one at the start of next year as the two healthcare provider organizations complete their withdrawal from Atrius Health.

Reliant announced Wednesday that the two organizations have reached an agreement to merge effective Jan. 1. Together, the two medical groups will employ more than 2,500, including 300 physicians and hundreds of other healthcare professionals, serving about 300,000 patients throughout Central Massachusetts and MetroWest.

Reliant, formerly the Fallon Clinic, has annual revenue of about $430 million and employs about 2,100 across 20 locations in and around Worcester. Southboro Medical, founded in 1972, has more than 450 employees at offices in Southborough, Framingham, Milford and Westborough.

A statement from Reliant said that between now and the end of the year, the two organizations will hammer out final details of the merger, but that there are no plans to change the name of either organization.

In August, Reliant and Southboro announced they will withdraw from Atrius, a network of six medical groups in Central and Eastern Massachusetts. The groups had been in the middle of "an intensive strategic planning process for several months," leading to a recommendation by the Atrius board to merge all six groups, according to a statement from Reliant. But "after a careful and comprehensive review of a revised merger proposal, both Reliant and Southboro chose to opt out" of the merger and pursue their own, Reliant said.

The two groups already work together in a small way. Earlier this year, Reliant opened a new medical office at Southboro's main medical center at 24 Newton St. in Southborough. In addition, Southboro Medical sends a specialty physician to a Reliant site in Central Massachusetts to serve patients.