HCA Florida Healthcare Physicians is the largest physician group based on the amount of its Medicare charges, which reach over $6 billion annually, according to June 2023 data sent to Becker's from Definitive Healthcare.  Editor's note: Data comes from the CMS Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Physician and Other Supplier Public Use File, refreshed once a year in June. Current data represents calendar year 2021, the latest period for which official data exists.

Certificate-of-need laws, which govern where providers can build facilities, including ASCs, are considered by some as an obstacle to ASC development.

A law has passed in Florida amending the state's Stark law supervision requirements, law firm Holland and Knight wrote in a June 30 JDSupra article. 

Hinsdale, Ill.-based physician John Greager, MD, has been sentenced to 6 months in prison and fined $1 million for submitting fraudulent claims to Medicare and a private payer. 

Here is how Medicare's conversion factors have evolved over 10 years, according to data from the American Medical Association: 

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed into law a policy that changes the state's facility fees law, according to a July 5 post from JD Supra.

Cigna, one of the largest payers in the U.S., surpassed investor expectations by posting a first quarter revenue of $1.3 billion.

Two physician specialties saw pay declines between 2021 to 2022, according to a new survey from the American Medical Group Association.

 Ophthalmologist Jay Singleton, MD, who owns an ophthalmology practice in New Bern, N.C., is challenging the state's certificate-of-need laws in a suit that says he can't perform procedures at his ASC. 

Nine physician specialties saw pay jumps between 2021 to 2022, according to a new survey from the American Medical Group Association.

A California health system and three healthcare providers have agreed to pay $68 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act and the California False Claims Act by submitting or causing the submission of false claims to Medi-Cal in relation to Medicaid Adult Expansion under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Justice Department reported June 29.

Seventy-eight people have been charged with the alleged participation in a healthcare fraud and opioid abuse scheme worth more than $2.5 billion.

Here are five key stats about ASC operating expenses from VMG Health's 2022 "Multi-Specialty ASC Benchmarking Study:"

Alejandro Fernandez, CEO of San Diego-based Synergy Orthopedic Specialists, joined Becker's to discuss the importance of ASC ownership as the healthcare industry becomes increasingly consolidated.

Twenty-one physician specialties saw pay increases in 2023, according to Medscape's "Physician Compensation Report 2023."

In January, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule that would ban noncompete contracts nationwide. Eighty-seven percent of physicians support the rule, according to a report from Doximity.

On June 20, the New York State Legislature passed a bill aiming to stop employers from entering into noncompete agreements with their employees, according to a June 26 post from JD Supra.

Physician-owned hospitals offer commercial and cash prices that are about one-third lower than non-physician-owned hospitals, according to a study published June 23 in JAMA Network Open.

Here are seven things physicians should know about the physician self-referral laws, or Stark laws, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Here are seven things physicians should know about the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists: