Livingstone advises National Health Rehabilitation on sale to Integrated Rehab Consultants

Livingstone is pleased to announce the healthcare team has advised National Health Rehabilitation (“NHR”), a national physiatry physician practice, on its sale to Integrated Rehab Consultants (“IRC”), a portfolio company of Webster Equity Partners (“Webster”). Livingstone acted as exclusive financial advisor to NHR.

Founded in 2015 by Drs. Nitin Putcha and Amishi Dharia, NHR is a physician-led practice focused on improving patient outcomes through the placement of physiatrists in skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) in need of high-quality rehabilitative care. NHR currently serves 250+ care centers across 26 states with 100+ providers.

IRC, founded by Dr. Amish Patel and Matt Ray, has provided high-quality physiatry services since 2010.  IRC has since become the largest group of physiatrists nationwide, focusing on SNFs and rapidly expanding into the inpatient hospital setting. Prior to the current announcement, IRC operated in 40 states with 200+ providers.

“Drawing on our experience in representing physician practice management businesses, we successfully generated significant interest from both strategic buyers and financial investors,” commented Jim Moskal, Partner at Livingstone. “We are proud to have advised NHR on this transaction with Livingstone having previously represented IRC in its sale to Webster. The combined company will be the largest national physiatry platform, furthering its ability to enhance patient outcomes, reduce length-of-stay and hospital readmission rates, and decrease the overall cost of care.”

Nitin Putcha, Chief Executive Officer of NHR, shared his thoughts about the values of the company and his excitement about the partnership, “The modern-day physician desires work-life balance with the ability to make a difference in patients’ lives.  NHR was founded on the principles of physician autonomy and independence. This partnership will allow us to diversify the array of physician support services we offer and increase our value proposition to the physicians we partner with. I strongly believe this will advance the field of physiatry as a must-have solution for post-acute care centers across the nation.”

“This transaction accelerates NHR’s impressive growth trajectory and enables the company to leverage its new partnership with IRC and Webster for greater growth ahead. Our combined scale opens up endless possibilities for the organization, and we are all very excited for the next chapter,” explains Daniel Nauheim, Chief Financial Officer of NHR.

Mark Carl, Director at Livingstone, noted, “NHR marks another successful transaction in physician practice management. This is a sector in which Livingstone maintains meaningful experience and transaction expertise, particularly musculoskeletal sub-specialties (orthopedics, physiatry), internal medicine/primary care, ENT, gastroenterology, and anesthesiology, among others.”

Livingstone’s healthcare practice has remained incredibly active over the last 18 months and recently bolstered the team through the hiring of Director Eric Weldzius, former Senior Vice President in the healthcare group at Houlihan Lokey. Select recent Livingstone healthcare transactions include the sale of primary care physician practice and urgent care operator Ocean State Healthcare to VillageMD, the sale of Research Triangle Dental to Heartland Dental, a portfolio company of KKR, and the sale of Progressive Behavioral Science to Cultivate Behavioral Health & Education, a portfolio company of Imperial Capital.

Fox Rothschild and Foley & Lardner provided legal counsel to NHR.