A proposal that would strip Medicare coverage from widely used peripheral nerve block procedures is still active nearly eight months after five Medicare Administrative Contractors published draft local coverage determinations in October. The proposed LCDs would classify therapeutic peripheral nerve…
Author: Patsy Newitt
Although staffing shortages and reimbursement pressure get a lot of attention in ASC conversations, Tom Valentine, the new president of Wellbridge Surgical, thinks the harder problem is physician recruitment in a rapidly consolidating workforce. According to Mr. Valentine, hospitals have…
Anesthesiologist average advertised salaries shifted significantly between the final quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, with several states posting gains well into six figures, according to data from anesthesia career platform BagMask.com. Here are the states with…
The FTC’s consent order requiring Ascension to divest seven ASCs before closing its $3.9 billion acquisition of Amsurg sent a clear message to the industry that outpatient surgery is valuable enough to fight over, and regulators are now watching local…
In the highest annual total in the history of the statute, the Department of Justice’s False Claims Act settlements and judgments exceeded $6.8 billion in fiscal year 2025, with more than $5.7 billion of those recoveries tied to healthcare. That…
Advertisement
From a state oversight process that killed an ASC rather than saved it to the federal government’s largest ASC antitrust action in history, here are five controversies that every operator should know. 1. The Oregon ASC that regulators couldn’t save …
U.S. Anesthesia Partners and the Federal Trade Commission reached an agreement in principle on April 23 to resolve a landmark antitrust case that accused USAP of buying up nearly every large anesthesia practice in Texas to create a single dominant…
Ascension has completed its $3.9 billion acquisition of AmSurg, expanding the St. Louis-based health system’s ASC network to more than 300 centers nationwide, according to a June 4 news release, but not before the Federal Trade Commission required the divestiture…
The HHS Office of Inspector General issued an unfavorable advisory opinion this month, concluding that an orthopedic device company’s plan to pay physician consultants royalties tied to product-line revenue posed a heightened risk under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Here are…
Matrix Medical Network, a Nashville, Tenn.-based health services company that conducts in-home assessments for Medicare Advantage patients, has agreed to pay $36.5 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations of generating false and invalid diagnoses to artificially inflate risk adjustment…