Here are seven pivotal ASC moves in Florida since Jan. 1:
1. West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Physician Partners of America and two of its top executives agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle allegations that they violated noncompete contract provisions. A Florida appellate court ruled Feb. 4 that Physician Partners of America must pay its competitors, including a Surgery Partners affiliate, for hiring their former employees while they were under noncompete contract provisions.
2. Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare completed an acquisition of MD Now Urgent Care, Florida's largest network of urgent care centers, expanding its reach into the booming outpatient and primary care sectors. The transaction, announced Jan. 4, adds 59 clinics to HCA's umbrella, which now comprises 170 urgent care clinics across 19 markets.
3. Physician Partners, a primary care physician group and managed service organization with more than 545 physician members in Florida, landed a $500 million investment Feb. 1.
4. The site for the new Flagler Health+ Durbin Park medical campus in St. Johns County has been cleared for construction. The $225 million, 42.5-acre campus will include an ASC, a medical office building, a women's health pavilion and a 77-bed hospital, the report said. The campus will be the site of the Andrews Sports Medicine Institute.
5. Melbourne, Fla.-based Surgery Center of Viera filed a lawsuit Jan. 20 in Florida Middle District Court in Orlando against Cigna and Strategic Enterprise Solutions. The ASC is seeking $434,000 for reimbursement of spinal surgery to treat a patient with "chronic (and progressively worsening) debilitating back pain," according to court documents. The center alleges Cigna determined the surgery medically necessary but only reimbursed about $75,000 on a billed amount of $405,373.
6. Borland Groover opened an endoscopy center in St. Augustine, Fla. The 13,000-square-foot center features four procedure rooms, 30 exam rooms and an expanded infusion suite. The ASC will offer endoscopy procedures, colonoscopies and colonoscopy screenings, among other services.
7. Two bills in the Florida House and Senate aim to clarify that certified registered nurse anesthetists can administer anesthesia in hospital, surgical and clinical settings in collaboration with specified licensed healthcare practitioners.