Mount Kisco Medical Group expands in Hudson Valley

Having recently secured a foothold in southern Westchester County, Mount Kisco Medical Group in 2015 will extend its service reach northward in the Hudson Valley when it completes its acquisition of Mid-Hudson Medical Group PC, based in Fishkill.

Though the two multispecialty group practices at press time had made no formal announcement of their deal, Mid-Hudson Medical Group officials recently notified the state Labor Department that 746 employees will be affected when the business closes on Dec. 31 and its assets are sold to Mount Kisco Medical Group. Private businesses with 50 or more full-time workers in New York are required by law to notify employees and the state Labor Department 90 days prior to plant closings or mass layoffs affecting 25 or more workers.

Dr. Scott D. Hayworth, president and CEO of Mount Kisco Medical Group PC, was traveling on business when the notice was posted Oct. 6 on the department”™s Albany website, prompting news reports of a mass layoff in the region. In a call to the Business Journal, he confirmed the acquisition, which will take effect Jan. 1, but sought to allay concerns that 746 area residents will be left jobless by the takeover.

“We plan on the vast majority of the Mid-Hudson Medical Group employees coming to work at Mount Kisco,” he said. “They”™ll come as individuals” newly applying for positions, he said.

Hayworth said Mount Kisco Medical Group administrators are meeting with all Mid-Hudson employees.

Dr. Joseph A. Garvey, president and CEO of Mid-Hudson Medical Group, did not return a call to his office seeking comment on the sale. Garvey has served as president of the approximately 100-physician group since 2007 and was named CEO 2 ½ years ago.

The acquisition could increase by about one-third the Mount Kisco group”™s physician roster. With more than 300 doctors, the physician-owned group in its home county currently is rivaled in number of practitioners only by Westmed Medical Group, the physician-owned multispecialty practice group headquartered in Purchase.

The Hayworth-led physician group has ventured into the southern portion of the county ”“ where Westmed has been dominant, adding solo and small group practices to its fast-growing group in recent years ”“ through its new partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at the New York City institution”™s outpatient cancer treatment facility that opened this month in West Harrison. Mount Kisco Medical Group doctors with appointments to the Memorial Sloan Kettering medical staff will provide noncancer clinical services to MSK patients, including cardiology, gastroenterology, gynecology, infections disease and internal medicine, at the $143 million, 114,000-square-foot center that adjoins the Fordham Westchester campus on Westchester Avenue.

By acquiring the Mid-Hudson Medical Group”™s assets, the Mount Kisco group will expand its existing practice locations northward along the Hudson River from Poughkeepsie into Ulster and Columbia counties as well as Connecticut”™s Litchfield County. Among its 11 practice locations, the Mid-Hudson group has medical offices in Rhinebeck in northern Dutchess County, in Highland and Lake Katrine in Ulster County, in Hudson in Columbia County and in Sharon, Conn. The two medical groups have overlapping practice areas in Putnam County and in southern Dutchess County up to Poughkeepsie.

The Mid-Hudson Medical Group has a nearly six-decade history in the Hudson Valley, according to its website. It was founded in Fishkill in 1955 by a general practitioner, a radiologist and an internist who observed that most small-town medical groups solely included either general practitioners or specialists practicing the same specialty. The doctors ”“ John Sarno, Alexander Friedman and Joseph Davis ”“ decided to merge the two types of groups and start a multispecialty group.

Mid-Hudson Medical Group now has its headquarters in the Westage Business Center in Fishkill.

Founded in 1946, Mount Kisco Medical Group provides medical care at 30 locations in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties. The independent practice group has a primary hospital affiliation with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and last month announced an expanded clinical affiliation with Mount Sinai Health System in New York City.