Doc owners to sell majority stake in Lafayette Surgical

Physician owners of Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital in Louisiana have agreed to sell a 56.9% interest in their 20-bed facility to National Surgical Hospitals, a Chicago-based owner and operator of 14 surgical hospitals and seven ambulatory surgery centers.

The sale is expected to close by Feb. 4. Funding was made through a deal with Irving Place Capital, a New York-based private equity firm; additional terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to a National Surgical Hospitals news release.

The 32 physician partners at Lafayette performed some 8,000 procedures in the institution's eight operating and two treatment rooms in 2010. The hospital has 176 employees, and it was named one of Modern Healthcare's Best Places to Work in Healthcare for 2010. (Watch a video interview with Lafayette Surgical Specialty CEO Buffy Domingue here.)

Last January, National Surgical Hospitals opened Corpus Christi (Texas) Specialty Hospital, a 31-bed, five-operating room facility that it operates in partnership with 55 local physicians.