HealthSouth Corporation and Dr. Larry Lemak are working with the XFL, the new professional football league jointly owned and operated by World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. and NBC, to provide medical coverage to the league. In addition to being the provider for the league, HealthSouth will also serve each of the eight XFL teams in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Memphis, Orlando, Birmingham, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

"The XFL is going to be an exciting football league with the WWF and Vince McMahon behind it," said Richard M. Scrushy, HealthSouth's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. "We are pleased to be working with Dr. Lemak, whose experience in sports medicine will be an asset to the XFL. Together, HealthSouth and Dr. Lemak will provide the best quality healthcare to keep the XFL players healthy and on the playing field."

"As the medical director for the XFL, my job is to make sure that the players receive the best medical treatment and that we work with the best possible sports medicine provider. HealthSouth is known for its expertise in team coverage and has worked with us to hire an athletic trainer and assistant athletic trainer for each of the eight teams," said Lemak. "I have worked with HealthSouth for years, seeing thousands of athletes, and am confident that our combined experience will work to the advantage of the XFL."

The XFL has elected to use HealthSouth's Episodic Care Program. This program, which offers the payor one price for the complete continuum of care for a single injury, is designed to save the league significant amounts of money in the area of workers compensation costs over the next few years.

HealthSouth is the nation's largest provider of outpatient surgery, rehabilitation and diagnostic healthcare services, with more than 2,000 locations in all 50 states, the United Kingdom, Australia, Puerto Rico and Canada. It currently provides sports medicine coverage to the PGA Tour, the Senior PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, and the Continental Basketball Association, as well as more than 2,000 high schools, 125 colleges and universities and 50 professional teams across the country. HealthSouth can be found on the Web at http://www.healthsouth.com/ .

Lemak is a founding partner of Alabama Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center. He has played an integral role in sports medicine and arthroscopy research as one of the founders and member of the Board of Directors of the American Sports Medicine Institute. As a champion of volunteerism, Lemak founded and serves as chairman of the Alabama Sports Foundation, which helped bring the 1996 Olympic soccer games to Birmingham. He also serves on the board for the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Development Board. In addition Lemak currently serves as a team physician at Auburn University and as medical director for Major League Soccer, and the LPGA.

For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Kristi Gilmore at 205-970-7824.

SOURCE: HealthSouth Corporation