Leadership

Reimbursement is tightening, operating costs are climbing and competition from hospitals and national platforms is accelerating. Yet a growing number of orthopedic and spine surgeons are responding not by retrenching but by redesigning their business models and restructuring partnerships to…

For most of the ASC industry’s history, bringing in a management company meant giving something up. Equity. A seat at the table. A share of the returns. The tradeoff was straightforward: you gained operational infrastructure, purchasing leverage, and specialized expertise,…

The current momentum for growth in the ASC market is significant. Medicare policy continues to expand the range of procedures that can be performed in the outpatient setting, commercial payers favor ASCs as a lower-cost site, and physicians and patients…

Management services organization U.S. Orthopaedic Partners has appointed Dean Brown as regional director of ASC operations. Mr. Brown will oversee ASC operations across the physician-led orthopedic management services organization’s network, supporting performance improvement at existing surgery centers and helping lead…

Labor costs and investments are dominating ASC leaders’ budgets, according to results from two Becker’s LinkedIn polls. In the first poll Becker’s asked: What is the most important investment in efficiency your ASC has made in the last year? Here’s…

AI agents have moved quickly from pilot to production in orthopedic operations, but adoption alone says little about returns. The harder question for operational leaders is which deployments are actually moving the needle on revenue, cost and capacity — and…

ASCs, spine and pain practices are under pressure to grow patient volume without growing operational headcount, even as payer requirements make administrative work increasingly complex. A new generation of AI agent workforce is emerging to close that gap,not the conversational…

The root of disappearing independent practices is not just reimbursement or referral diversion, according to Ahmed Hasan, MD, president of Lehigh (Pa.) Gastroenterology Associates — it starts in medical school. “When you’re in medical school, they don’t teach doctors how…

A study published in May 2026 by American Medical Association researchers found the mean age at which physicians left clinical practice was 48.1 years — nine years younger than a comparable cohort from 2008.  Among the 521 respondents who had…

Joseph Woo, MD, recently took over as the 107th president The American Association for Thoracic Surgery for 2026-27, according to a May 15 social media post by the organization.  Dr. Woo is a cardiothoracic, cardiovascular and transplant surgeon with Stanford…