HEALTHSOUTH CORP. ACQUIRES MISSOURI SURGERY CENTER

A giant health-care corporation has acquired one of Cape Girardeau's outpatient surgery centers.

HealthSouth Corp., headquartered in Birmingham, Ala., announced Monday that it has acquired Missouri Surgery Center Inc. at 300 S. Mount Auburn Road.

The center, opened in 1993 by Dr. Greg Tobin, a plastic and hand surgeon, is now called HealthSouth Surgery Center of Cape Girardeau, said Todd A. Johnson, administrator of the outpatient surgery center.

Tobin, who will remain with the center, called the sale "a positive thing."

HealthSouth has more than 1,800 locations nationally and in the United Kingdom and Australia. It was the first health-care provider to operate in all 50 states.

With the new surgery center it has six locations in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois: the surgery center and HealthSouth Rehabilitation Center in Cape Girardeau plus businesses in Sikeston, Dexter, Carbondale and Pinckneyville.

Pat Foster, president of HealthSouth's surgery division, said: "HealthSouth is pleased to expand its health-care services in Cape Girardeau. With every addition to our network, we are able to further enhance HealthSouth's reputation for high-quality, cost-effective care."

The only change patients will notice is the new name, Johnson said, adding the center will continue its outpatient surgery services in general, plastic, gynecological, orthopedic, ear, nose and throat surgeries, pediatric dental care and pain management.

Missouri Surgery Center was Cape Girardeau's second outpatient surgery facility. Doctor's park Surgery opened in 1976 and expanded operations after a change in state law allowed outpatient surgery centers to keep patients for more than 12 hours.

The time constraint meant more complicated procedures had to be performed in hospital settings.

Better medical technology, new techniques and new medications, coupled with the push to cut health-care costs, have led to the growth in outpatient surgery centers around the U.S. Tobin says that growth will continue.

"I think outpatient surgery is going to continue in all disciplines," he said. "Depending on whom you read, it's going to double or even triple over the next 15 to 20 years."

Patients have been very receptive to outpatient surgery, Tobin said, "because of the high quality and decreased costs associated with it."