College Park, Md.-based internal medicine physician Anuja Kurichh, MD, has agreed to pay more than $500,000 to resolve billing fraud allegations, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Centene is one of the nation's largest health insurers by membership. 

Despite an increased demand for patient care in 2021, national health spending growth has slowed to 4.6 percent compared to 9.7 percent in 2020, according to a CMS news release shared with Becker's.

Miami physician Mark Zager, MD, was sentenced to two years in prison for healthcare and wire fraud, the Justice Department said March 24.

Health Care Service Corp., the parent company of BCBS of Illinois, was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars after terminating its contract with a 600-physician medical group and ASC.

Healthcare is not a one-size-fits-all industry. The current and projected U.S. healthcare and other industries labor markets are experiencing labor shortages that are driving up wages for qualified workers.

Anthem is one of the largest health insurance companies in the country by revenue and membership. 

ASC owners and administrators are finding it more difficult to obtain payment from insurers as companies change coverage policies. But the current strain could push insurers and ASCs to find common ground on caring for the entire episode of care more efficiently and cost-effectively.

According to a study published in Health Affairs, if all physician practices performed at the level of "robust practices," they would save an estimated $14.9 billion on fee-for-service beneficiaries annually.

Physicians are clinging to fee-for-service payment to avoid the proverbial "race to the bottom" of bundled payments, which often cut pay rates.

Medicare payments to ASCs dropped 6.4 percent between 2019 and 2020, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's March report to Congress. 

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended Medicare continue its physician fee payment freeze despite ongoing financial pressure from the pandemic.

In its March report to Congress, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended cutting the 2023 Medicare conversion factor for ASCs and to require ASCs to report cost data. 

Southern ASCs earn the most revenue in the country, according to VMG Health's "Multi-Specialty ASC Benchmarking Study" for 2022.

The U.S. attorney's office asked a federal judge not to dismiss a whistleblower lawsuit against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and one of its top surgeons, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported March 10.

Twelve Michigan- and Ohio-based physicians were sentenced March 9 to prison for their roles in a scheme to perform and bill for unnecessary procedures in exchange for opioid prescriptions.

Two major credit card companies plan to increase merchant fees, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A gastroenterologist in Central Islip, N.Y., pleaded guilty March 7 to billing Medicare for millions of dollars for medical procedures that weren't performed, according to the Justice Department.

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City is leading the charge in ASC price transparency with its all-cash model, according to a March 4 D Magazine report. 

Commercial payers account for 55 percent of total collections at ASCs, according to VMG Health's "Multi-Specialty ASC Benchmarking Study" for 2022.