Physicians Care Surgical Hospital opens in Royersford

The region's second doctor-owned medical center opened today when the Physicians Care Surgical Hospital started seeing patients in western Montgomery County.

The $23 million, 12-bed hospital features five operating rooms equipped for general surgery, gynecology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery and otolaryngology.

The 30,000-square-foot hospital was developed, and is being managed, by Nueterra Healthcare of Leawood, Kan. Nueterra develops and manages physician-owned hospitals, surgical centers, physical therapy centers and outpatient centers across the country.

The Royersford hospital opened with 35 employees and three of its operating rooms in service.

The creation of the physician-owned hospital, on Enterprise Drive, was led by Dr. Frederic Liss, an orthopedic surgeon, and Dr. Larry Feiner, an ear, nose and throat specialist. The hospital's staff directory lists 16 doctors, 10 of whom are specialists in ophthalmology.

"My colleagues and I had been talking about our discontentment and dissatisfaction with some of the trends we were seeing in hospital care and we decided we wanted to create an environment where we controlled the environment," Liss said.

The physicians first tossed around the idea of opening an ambulatory surgical center, but eventually decided not to go that route because they didn't want to exclude doctors who didn't perform outpatient surgery.

The doctors then met with officials at Nueterra, which led to the decision to establish a full-service hospital.

The doctors' main competition will come from Community Health Systems of Brentwood, Tenn., which owns and operate two hospitals - Pottstown Memorial Hospital and Phoenixville Hospital - that serve patients in western Montgomery County. CHS also owns Brandywine and Jennersville Regional hospitals in Chester County and Chestnut Hill Hospital in a joint venture with the University of Pennsylvania Health System. CHS owns, leases or operates 126 hospitals in 29 states.

Officials at CHS, which has invested tens of millions of dollars in capital improvements at the Philadelphia-area hospitals it has acquired, were not available to comment on the opening of the Physicians Care Surgical Hospital.

Nueterra manages 85 health-care facilities alone or in joint ventures, including the Bucks County Specialty Hospital in Bensalem, which was the region's first doctor-owned hospital.

The Bucks County Specialty Hospital, which opened last year, was established by Nueterra and the Rothman Institute. In August, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Holy Redeemer Health System joined the partnership as partial owners of the 64,000-square-foot hospital that specializes in orthopedic care.