The CEO of LifeCare Hospitals of Dayton says the bankruptcy proceedings and acquisition of its Texas parent company won’t affect ongoing local operations.

In fact, the long-term acute care hospital, located at Sycamore Medical Center in Miamisburg, has plans to grow capacity to treat more patients. It wants to add three more private patient rooms, said Russell Dean, chief executive officer of LifeCare in Dayton. The hospital, which leases space from Sycamore, now has 39 private patient rooms, Dean said.

Long-term acute care hospitals specialize in the care of patients with serious and complicated illnesses or major wounds that need extended hospital stays, said health experts.

“Nothing’s changing. If anything, we’re growing,” Dean said. “We stay full. Our biggest problem is we often run out of beds and we don’t have any place to put somebody.”

LifeCare’s parent company, LCI Holdco LLC of Plano, Texas, announced Dec. 11 it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As part of the filing, it said an agreement was reached for the company to be acquired by Hospital Acquisition LLC, a group of LifeCare’s lenders. It’s all subject to court approval.

LCI Holdco owns LifeCare Holdings Inc., which runs 27 long-term hospitals in 10 states, according to the company.

A “significant” and unexpected setback that negatively impacted LifeCare’s finances was the loss of three facilities in the New Orleans area from the 2005 hurricane, according to court documents. The loss of the Louisiana hospitals, and the revenue and profits those facilities provided, was made worse by federal regulations in 2006 and 2007 that reduced Medicare reimbursement rates for services. Further growth for the company was hurt by a federally imposed moratorium in 2007 on the construction or expansion of LTAC facilities, set to expire at the end of this month, also according court records.

LifeCare Hospitals of Dayton, 4000 Miamisburg-Centerville Road, has operated locally for 13 years and has 44 licensed beds, Dean said. It is LifeCare’s only Ohio location.

The Miamisburg hospital has about 150 medical personnel, in addition to about 180 employees, such as nurses, therapists and pharmacists. LifeCare’s only competitor in the Dayton market is Kindred Hospital Dayton, 707 S. Edwin C. Moses Blvd.