It’s not a fresh notion that, at its best, art imitates life, but Mark Feuerstein admits that “Royal Pains,” premiering tonight on USA Network, resonated with him like “a crazy thing.”

A cross between a medical procedural and a character-driven comedy series, “Pains” casts Feuerstein (“Good Morning, Miami”) as Hank Lawson, a hotshot doctor whose career is on a fast track until he makes a highly principled yet fateful decision in the emergency room that gets him fired from his Manhattan hospital and blacklisted by other A-list facilities.

Disillusioned, Hank sinks into a deep depression until his accountant brother, Evan (Paulo Costanzo, “Joey”), urges Hank to join him for a depressurizing weekend in the Hamptons. The siblings crash an exclusive party at a mansion, where Hank renders emergency medical attention to a party guest. Word quickly spreads, and soon Hank finds himself with a thriving if strange new gig as a “concierge doctor” to the rich and pampered.

Feuerstein, a native New Yorker, knows the world of the Hamptons from family vacations, and he was struck by how vividly series creator Andrew Lenchewski captured this vibrant community.

Lenchewski says he never had heard of concierge doctors until a friend said his family used one.

“He said, ‘Do you think that could be a good idea for a TV show?’ and I said, ‘No, I think it would be the perfect idea for a TV show!’ ” Lenchewski recalls. “It’s also a classic fish-out-of-water story, and everything we see, we see through Hank’s eyes. It’s about his journey to reinvent himself, but he’s doing it in this place he doesn’t understand at all, and I think we can get a lot of drama and a lot of comedy out of that.”

Feuerstein says he is thrilled that USA Network opted to film the series on location.

“I cannot tell you the joy I get from a little insert like Gin Lane or shooting at an enormous mansion on the beach in Southhampton that I know is worth $20 million and I appreciate because I know it’s the true, authentic abundance that we’re trying to capture,” he says.

The actor, whose last series, “3 Lbs.,” ran for only three weeks on CBS in 2006, also says he is thrilled to be working in cable these days.

“It was terrifying when I was on a network show and there was so much paranoia and anxiety about numbers, ratings and how to ‘service’ a procedural drama,” he says. “I can’t control America’s tastes. I get that. But the amount of time you have to establish an audience is so minute at a network because everyone’s job there seems to be to channel fear into demographic evaluations and number crunching.

“ … At USA, it’s like we’re working with a producer on an independent film. They are all so supportive of our show. … I feel like I was on the networks when the sitcom was dying, and I am on a cable network as it is about to blossom into the new wave of television. Everything I watch is on cable these days.”