Bucks County getting $120M health center

A $120 million health-care complex is coming to Bensalem, Pa.

The 200,000-square-foot LifeStyle Comprehensive Healthcare Center in Bucks County will — when completed in 2015 — feature an array of medical specialties including women’s health, orthopedics, cancer treatment, primary care and general and plastic surgery. In addition, an 80-bed skilled nursing facility will also be built on the campus.

Fred Rappaport, chairman and CEO of project developer Lifestyle Healthcare Group, described the complex as a hospital without inpatient beds or an emergency room.

“We didn’t want to build a hospital because that was not the direction we wanted to go,” said Rappaport, a native of South Philadelphia whose background is in engineering and the medical-device industry. “Most of health care today is being delivered on an outpatient basis.”

Construction for the LifeStyle Comprehensive Healthcare Center, on an 11-acre parcel on New Road near the Neshaminy Mall by the old state police barracks, is beginning Thursday. The center, being built on what was a parking lot, will be visible from Route 1.

Rappaport said he and his wife first started talking about creating a comprehensive health center back in 2008 when watching television shows about plastic surgery and “extreme makeovers” on television.

“We thought wouldn’t it be nice to have everything under one roof,” Rappaport said.

The couple, who lives in Bucks County, checked out a former specialty hospital — the Comprehensive Breast Care Institute — also in Bensalem that had closed as a potential site for such a center — but the building did not fit their vision. That hospital is now the Rothman Orthopedic Specialty Hospital.

The New Road site proved to be a better location for the outpatient center project.

Rappaport is leading the group of private owners who comprise the LifeStyle Healthcare Group. He said the scope of services the center will provide has expanded as more physicians have committed to the project.

“Early on we knew this ‘field of dreams’ wasn’t going to work unless we had enough doctors commit to the project,” Rapport said.

Their goal is to attract least 300 to 400 physicians, whose practices encompass 60,000 to 100,000 covered lives. To date, they have signed agreements with more than 100 doctors, according to Rappaport, who expects that number to grow as the project advances and becomes more real.

One of his early partners for the project, he said, was Dr. George Popky, a local radiologist who had a similar vision for a comprehensive health center.

In addition to the variety of specialists who practice at the center, the complex will also feature on-site labs; a separate sports complex for training and rehabilitation; advanced medical technology, including a Truebeam radiotherapy system for cancer patients; and electronic medical records technology.

“We are developing a health-care model that allows primary care physicians to easily interact with specialists at one convenient location,” Rappaport said.

Rappaport said the center will address to key components of health care — cost savings and patient satisfaction — by providing medical treatment in a less costly and more convenient setting.

The center was designed by GS Architects of Havertown, Pa. P. Agnes of Philadelphia is managing the construction of the project.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal