Michael Nowling, who last month resigned his post as president of the Heart Institute of Spokane, has signed a letter of intent to buy the assets of Family Home Care, a Spokane home health-care provider with nearly 200 employees.


Nowling has agreed to buy the organization for an undisclosed sum from Empire Health Services, the big health-care provider here that also operates Deaconess Medical Center and Valley Hospital & Medical Center. He would serve as Family Homes president. The transaction is expected to close later this month.


Family Home Care has operated as a division of nonprofit Empire Health and has been affiliated with Deaconess and the former St. Lukes Hospital for more than 30 years, says Nowling. When the purchase closes, it will become a for-profit corporation operating under the name Family Home Care Inc. Nowling says he hopes to retain nearly all of the Empire divisions employees.


Im very excited about our future. says Nowling. Its a terrific organization with a very talented staff. I just couldnt resist such a fantastic opportunity.


Family Home Care is a physician-referred health-care provider that offers in-home care and rehabilitation to patients who are physically unable to use outpatient services but are able to recuperate at home. Among the services it provides are nursing, physical and occupational therapy, and oncology services.


The enterprises main offices are located at 312 W. Eighth, but it also operates satellite offices on the North Side and in the Spokane Valley. Virtually all of its clients are located within Spokane County, where it has a state-approved certificate of need to operate, although it has authority to serve a small number of clients just outside the county in Washington state and also serves a few in North Idaho, where it doesnt need a certificate of need, Nowling says.


He says Family Home Care serves about 3,000 clients annually. He declines to disclose revenue figures.


Its clients typically have been discharged from a hospital, but require some additional nursing or health-care support in their homes for an interim period of time. The fees they pay typically are based on guidelines set by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers, which are the payees in almost all cases. In a small number of cases, patients or patients families pay directly for services, typically for assisted-living type tasks such as making sure a patient gets needed medications or assisting him or her with a bath.


Family Home Cares employees range from registered nurses and physical therapists to nursing assistants and people who help with assisted-living tasks. An equal mix of the employees work full or part time, and a small number work on an on-call basis, Nowling says. They typically have a set schedule and go directly to their clients from their own homes.


Nowling says that after more than 10 years of running the Heart Institute, he was ready for a new challenge, and began looking at Family Home Care in November after being approached with the opportunity to buy it by Corporate Resources Inc., a Spokane company that facilitates such acquisitions. He says that most health-care administrators expect to move from city to city several times during their career, and he and his family wanted to find a way to stay in Spokane.


Corporate Resources Ned Wendle says he earlier had been working on a possible sale of the division to another Spokane buyer, but that potential buyer unexpectedly passed away before the sale was completed. Empire spokeswoman Janice Marich says Empire hadnt been seeking a buyer for the division actively, but the sale is consistent with its policy to concentrate on the hospitals.


State National Bank, which entered the Spokane market two years ago, provided Nowling both the financing needed for the asset purchase and a line of credit to operate the business.


Nowling says hes buying the home-health organization at a time when that industry is struggling amid tightening reimbursements and rising labor costs. Still, he says that based on his time with the Heart Institute, he understands very well what it takes to manage a health-care organization under those circumstances, and is confident that he can make a success of Family Home Care.


Were going to focus on solid financial performance and profitability, he says. Its safe to say that we want to grow this business, geographically and in terms of market share in Spokane County.


He says the biggest changes planned at Family Home Care as a result of the acquisition will be related to its shift from a division within a larger, nonprofit organization to a free-standing, for-profit enterprise. He says the company will have to develop new ways to handle everything from payroll and accounting to risk management and hiring. He says Family Home Care might opt to contract with Empire Health to provide some back-office tasks, at least for the near term.


Nowling, 45, came to Spokane in 1990 as the first president of the Heart Institute, a nonprofit cardiovascular services and research organization here.