Rex Healthcare forming new heart practice

Two cardiothoracic surgeons are leaving Carolina Cardiovascular Surgical Associates to form a new practice affiliated with Rex Healthcare.

The two surgeons, Lance E. Landvater and Robert B. Peyton, are the latest Wake County doctors to change affiliations, moves that are being driven by both competition between WakeMed and Rex and federal health care reform.

The two surgeons were part of an 8-surgeon team at Carolina Cardiovascular Surgical Associates. The practice is based at WakeMed but the group's surgeons have privileges to operate at both hospitals.

Landvater and Peyton will be co-medical directors of the new Rex practice, to be called Rex Cardiothoracic Surgery Specialists.

They will work with other physicians affiliated with Rex’s Heart & Vascular team, including cardiologists and vascular and thoracic surgeons, and they will join the UNC faculty led by Andy C. Kiser, M.D., who in July was named chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Rex is part of the UNC Health Care System. Earlier this year WakeMed made a hostile $750 million bid to buy rival Raleigh hospital.

The offer to buy Rex followed months of increasing hostility between WakeMed and UNC Health. WakeMed officials contend that UNC and Rex are using their status as a state-supported hospital system to compete unfairly in Wake County's medical market.

The spat is also occurring at a turbulent time in the health care market. Several factors, including federal health reform, have triggered a wave of consolidation as medical providers seek financial security in larger health systems.

Last week, ratings agency Standard & Poors affirmed Rex' top credit rating, in part because of the hospital's recent success at adding more doctors, particularly in the areas of oncology and heart and vascular services.