For many ASCs, cost pressures persist and payers haven't adjusted to reflect rising costs. 

Pediatric intensivist David Lankford, DO, is suing Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Lutheran Health Network, his former employer, to get out of his noncompete agreement, Indiana Public Media reported July 10. 

Here are three Stark law updates Becker's has reported on since June 6:

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.