OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Integris Health, the largest nonprofit health provider in Oklahoma, has signed an agreement to join Risant Health, the nonprofit group Kaiser Permanente formed.
Leaders of the two groups signed the final agreement Monday, and Integris told its roughly 13,000 employees about it Wednesday morning. The deal still needs approval from regulators. Risant’s interim chief executive, Dale Maxwell, expects it to close late in the first quarter of 2027.
Integris would be the third system under the Risant umbrella, after Geisinger in Pennsylvania and Cone Health in North Carolina, and the group’s first in Oklahoma. Integris runs 10 acute care hospitals and 10 specialty hospitals along with clinics and urgent care centers, and it has the biggest physician network in the state.
Chief executive Timothy Pehrson said talks with Risant began about 16 months ago. He said the system will hold on to its name, its board, its medical staff and its leadership team, and that no restructuring or layoffs are planned. Patients should keep seeing their usual Integris doctors, and the system plans to stay in its current insurance contracts.
Pehrson framed the move as a way to save money on big purchases, such as drugs and imaging machines like MRI and CT scanners, by buying as part of a larger organization. Because both sides are nonprofits, no stock changes hands; Risant becomes the parent organization. Risant was created in 2023 to expand value-based care, which pays providers based on patient results.
Filed under: Oklahoma City OK Health News