Becker’s ASC

Surgery centers spent 2025 absorbing rising labor, supply and anesthesia costs against largely flat reimbursement, and the share of ASCs expecting to pay anesthesia stipends jumped from 28% in 2024 to 44% in 2025. For many centers, there’s less room…

Maryland has the highest concentration of ASCs in the U.S., with about eight centers per 100,000 residents, according to an October white paper from Medicus Healthcare Solutions. The staffing firm counted about 10,900 ASCs operating nationwide as of October 2026,…

The biggest buyers in outpatient surgery have changed over the past five years. Health systems that once treated ASCs as a side business are now buying national operators outright. Drug distributors are paying billions for the specialty physician groups that…

Cincinnati-based Bon Secours Mercy Health affiliate HealthSpan Partners agreed Oct. 26 to acquire Brentwood, Tenn.-based Surgery Partners in an all-cash deal valued at about $5.7 billion, including debt. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027,…

Irving, Texas-based NorthStar Anesthesia is warning that the recent calm in anesthesia staffing may not last, as the company reports evaluating three times as many Dallas-Fort Worth partnerships in the fourth quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter.  After…

UnitedHealth Group’s Optum plans to grow its ASC business in markets where it already operates, a strategy that puts more ASCs alongside a parent insurer that has negotiated lower rates than rival payers. The footprint: Optum’s SCA Health runs more…

A Missouri surgeon and a Kansas device distributor have been sentenced in a kickback scheme in which spinal implant maker SpineFrontier paid the surgeon through a sham consulting program, according to an Oct. 22 release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office…

CMS has proposed cutting the Medicare anesthesia conversion factor 1.38% in 2027, to $20.2143 from $20.4976, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists. For anesthesia providers in qualifying alternative payment models, the rate would fall 0.89%, to $20.4165 from $20.5998.…