ApolloMD calls it a homecoming, but public records tell a different story

by Marty Wilde

Yogin Patel, CEO of ApolloMD, published a letter in Lookout Eugene-Springfield this week telling us that emergency care in Lane County is “personal” for him. He trained at OHSU nearly two decades ago, he says. Oregon shaped him. This feels like a homecoming.

It’s a touching story. It’s also a master class in saying nothing verifiable while sounding reassuring. The public record tells a rather different story.

Lane Emergency Physicians is an Atlanta corporation

Dr. Patel’s letter introduces a new entity called “Lane Emergency Physicians,” describing it as a “local practice” that ApolloMD will support. He frames this as keeping “care local.”

Oregon Secretary of State records are more honest. Lane Emergency Physicians LLC was incorporated in Oregon on Feb. 9, 2026 — the same day PeaceHealth announced it was terminating its contract with Eugene Emergency Physicians.

Its principal place of business is listed as 5665 New Northside Drive, Suite 320, Atlanta, Georgia 30328. Its mailing address is the same Atlanta address. Its organizer is Melissa Atkins of Atlanta, Georgia. The individual listed as having “direct knowledge” of the entity is Johne Philip Chapman, also of Atlanta, Georgia. Its registered agent in Oregon is not a local physician or community member. It is Corporation Service Company, a commercial registered agent firm.

Dr. Patel’s name does not appear anywhere in the filing.

There is nothing local about Lane Emergency Physicians. It is an Atlanta LLC, organized by Atlanta employees on the day the contract was announced, bearing an Oregon name. It is structured as a “manager-managed” LLC, a legal form that places control with designated managers rather than physician members, a structure commonly used in the industry to give a management company effective operational control while maintaining the appearance of physician ownership. This is precisely the arrangement Oregon’s SB 951 was designed to scrutinize.

When Dr. Patel says ApolloMD’s role is “to support a new local practice called Lane Emergency Physicians,” he is describing a company his employees created, at his company’s Atlanta address, on the day the contract was announced. That is not a local practice. That is a legal vehicle.

This ‘felt like a homecoming,’ but he practices at 18 North Carolina hospitals

Dr. Patel writes movingly about training at OHSU from 2004 to 2007 and his hope to return to Oregon. “Oregon shaped me as a doctor, as a husband and as a leader,” he writes. It is a compelling personal narrative. It is also difficult to square with his publicly documented practice life.

According to the North Carolina Medical Board, as of February 20, 2026, Dr. Patel holds an active North Carolina medical license and hospital admitting privileges at 18 North Carolina hospitals, including Carolinas Medical Center, Atrium Health Mercy, Central Carolina Hospital, Lenoir Memorial Hospital, and Stanly Regional Medical Center.

ApolloMD’s own leadership page describes him as “a practicing Emergency Physician proudly serving communities throughout the Carolinas.” The Duke Health Sector Advisory Council, where he serves in an advisory capacity, says the same.

Dr. Patel does have an inactive medical license in Oregon. It is one of ten states in which he is licensed, including both active and inactive licenses. But there are no Oregon hospital privileges listed in his North Carolina Medical Board profile. The state where he actually works, according to the public record, is North Carolina.

Dr. Patel completed his residency in Oregon nearly two decades ago. He has built his career, his clinical practice, and his hospital relationships in the Carolinas. Describing the Lane County contract as a “homecoming” is a sentiment his own company’s website does not support.

Lane County residents deserve to know: does Dr. Patel intend to relocate to Oregon, or was the homecoming framing a rhetorical gesture in service of a business announcement? After all, the public record shows he has 10 “homes” to come home to.

‘We are not owned by private equity’

This is ApolloMD’s standard talking point, and it deserves the scrutiny it has consistently avoided. The American Academy of Emergency Medicine tells a different story.

AAEM President Robert Frolichstein publicly noted that ApolloMD was backed until recently by ValorBridge Partners, a private equity firm, and called on Oregon regulators to review the arrangement under Oregon’s SB 951, which restricts corporate ownership of medical practices.

Tracxn, a venture capital data platform, lists ValorBridge Partners as ApolloMD’s sole institutional investor across $10.9 million in funding.

ValorBridge doesn’t hide its status. Why does ApolloMD?

Dr. Patel’s letter does not mention ValorBridge. It does not explain the nature of that relationship, when it ended, or under what terms. “We are not owned by private equity” is a sentence that can be technically true in many ways while obscuring a great deal.

A company that was recently backed by private equity, that operates as a privately-held corporation with no publicly disclosed financials, and whose estimated annual revenue exceeds $400 million, is not the transparent community partner this letter portrays.

If ApolloMD genuinely has no private equity entanglements, the company should say so under oath in response to the AAEM’s request for regulatory review under SB 951.

What the letter doesn’t address

Dr. Patel does not mention a pending False Claims Act lawsuit in which a whistleblower physician alleges ApolloMD systematically directed doctors to sign Medicare claims for patients they never saw, billing at the higher physician reimbursement rate for services actually provided by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. ApolloMD has denied the allegations. The case has survived a motion to dismiss and remains active.

He does not address the industry pattern of underbidding contracts and raising rates in subsequent years — a pattern that drove three major PE-adjacent competitors into bankruptcy, leaving physicians unpaid and communities holding the bag.

He does not explain how ApolloMD plans to staff RiverBend when all 41 existing EEP physicians have refused to work for the company. He does not address why EEP was not offered the right to match ApolloMD’s proposal.

Instead, he tells us that health care “is not a competition.” This is rich from the CEO of a company that just won a competitive bidding process to replace physicians who have served this community for 35 years and then filed the paperwork for a “local” entity at his Atlanta headquarters on the day the announcement was made.

A note to Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Lookout is a valued local news organization, and this community is fortunate to have it. That is precisely why this criticism matters.

In the past two days, Lookout has published op-eds from PeaceHealth’s chief hospital executive and the CEO of ApolloMD. Both make factual claims about corporate structure, local ownership, financial investment, and competitive process. Neither author was asked to sit for an interview. Neither piece carries any indication that Lookout sought to verify the claims made, requested comment from EEP, or asked follow-up questions.

The physicians of Eugene Emergency Physicians gave interviews. They answered questions on the record and were subject to journalistic scrutiny. The executives of PeaceHealth and ApolloMD have instead been handed a platform with no equivalent obligation.

We now know, from public records, that “Lane Emergency Physicians”, described in Lookout as a “local practice”, is an Atlanta LLC organized at ApolloMD’s corporate address on the day the contract was announced. We know that ApolloMD’s own website describes its CEO as practicing in the Carolinas, and that he holds admitting privileges at 18 North Carolina hospitals. These facts were available before either piece was published. A reporter with twenty minutes and a browser could have found them.

Lookout should require the same standard of all parties: either interview these executives on the record and ask the hard questions about the ValorBridge relationship, the Lane Emergency Physicians ownership structure, SB 951 compliance, the False Claims Act suit, and the staffing plan, or label these submissions as advocacy, not community journalism.

Lane County residents are being asked to trust the company that will staff the Level II trauma center. A warm letter about OHSU memories, organized from an Atlanta office suite, does not earn that trust.

ApolloMD and Lookout Eugene-Springfield have been invited to respond.

Marty Wilde represented central Lane and Linn counties in the Oregon legislature. For more of his Letters From a Recovering Politician, subscribe at https://martywilde.substack.com/subscribe.