Whether you’re thinking of starting a medical practice or you want to optimize your current medical office operating expenses, you should know what costs to include in your calculations.

UnitedHealth Group, parent company of ASC management company United Surgical Partners International, has continued its growth, both in terms of revenue and number of affiliated physicians. 

Philip Blair, CEO of Surgery Center Services of America, spoke with Becker's about his ASC companies' biggest growth targets and why cardiology is so important for ASCs. 

CMS added a Stark law waiver for physician owners of independent free-standing emergency departments that served Medicare patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an article written by three attorneys from the firm McDermott, Will & Emery and published in Lexology on June 2. 

California-based Kaiser Permanente Health Plans is the largest payer in the U.S., covering about 9,257,115 patients and incurring $48.19 billion in claims, according to data published Feb. 20 by Definitive Healthcare. 

Texas ASC leaders are seeing a growing amount of hostile state legislation. 

Texas' price transparency laws are burdening ASCs, many leaders say. 

Sixty-five percent of physicians plan to continue treating Medicare and Medicaid patients, according to Medscape's "Physician Compensation Report 2023," a 6 percent decrease from last year's report.

Here are five updates about prior authorizations that ASCs need to know:

I always attribute my journey in the healthcare industry to a desire to follow in my father's footsteps. In 1998, I founded Medi-Corp to provide tailored revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions for the anesthesia and pain management industry.

CMS' policies have the power to turn the tide of the surgery center industry. Here is how those policies have both helped and hurt ASCs in 2023.

Although the mean annual wage among healthcare administrators is $122,420, that can vary based on factors including experience and practice setting, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational employment statistics survey.

Here are five payer updates Becker's has reported on since June 12: 

Here are three notes pointing to payers pushing procedures to ASCs:

Here are six prior authorization stories Becker's has reported on since May 11:

UnitedHealthcare’s 2023 site-of-service policy, which went into effect April 1, could push procedures to the ASC setting. 

Payers are continuing to look at ASCs as a way to cut costs, leaders said at a March 22 California Ambulatory Surgery Association summit with payers and industry stakeholders. 

While the ASC industry as a whole has opportunity for growth, Raghu Reddy, chief administrative officer of Cumberland-based SurgCenter of Western Maryland, is concerned about the lack of accountability for payers. 

The growing number of ASCs that choose to outsource their billing have options. ASC billing companies usually offer similar services and promise similar results like endto-end revenue cycle management, strengthened bottom-line performance and increased efficiency. These are all important deliverables for an ASC billing company and should be on the list of what a surgery center expects as the bare minimum when choosing a billing partner.

The U.S. sued a plastic surgeon formerly of Tri-State Specialists in Sioux City, Iowa, for violating the False Claims Act.