Doctor Deals Podcast

In this episode, Kevin Backer, Director of Business Development, at Emergency Care Partners talks with Nick about the No Surprises Act, the impact of corporate failures of national physician staffing firms, and the role of advanced practice providers in emergency departments.

Medicare is dropping the payment hammer on skin substitute reimbursement in 2026. This episode covers Medicare's new skin substitute payment changes, as well as the implications this has on commercial reimbursement. Learn more at: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/12/18/medicare-hammers-skin-substitute-rates-in-2026/

Congestive heart failure is one of the highest-cost diseases driving hospital readmissions and healthcare costs in the U.S. A highly effective treatment for preventing hospital readmissions of heart failure patients is intensive cardiac rehab. The intensive cardiac rehab benefits under Medicare and commercial payers pay physicians and hospitals surprisingly good reimbursement. Learn more: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/10/31/crush-readmissions-make-money-with-cardiac-rehab/

Premature birth interrupts the normal development of blood vessels in infants' eyes. If not diagnosed and treated in a timely manner, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) can result in retinal detachment and blindness. Hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) have a compelling need to contract with pediatric ophthalmologists to provide ROP screening and treatment services. Learn more: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/10/12/retinopathy-of-prematurity-fmv-of-pediatric-ophthalmology-services/

Alaska has fewer physician residents-in-training than any other U.S. state except Wyoming. Together with Alaska's remote location, nine hundred miles from Washington State, these factors create one of the most challenging markets for attracting and retaining physicians. Learn more: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/10/02/alaska-the-outlier-state-for-physician-services/

Medical geneticists and molecular pathologists play a major role in the growing fields of genomic testing and molecular diagnostics. Reimbursement for professional interpretation of these tests has fallen through the cracks of a complex system. Learn more: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/09/16/fair-market-value-for-interpretation-of-molecular-diagnostic-genomic-tests/

Cardinal, McKesson, and Cencora have been busy during the past two years. These three drug distributors have spent over $17 billion acquiring large specialty medical groups from private equity sellers. Close review of the target acquisitions reveals a compelling business strategy involving in-office drug infusions, injections, and dispensing. Learn more at: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/08/27/17-billion-in-doctor-deals-done-by-drug-distributors/

National physician enterprises set compensation rates in dozens or even hundreds of different markets. Clearly physicians in Alaska and San Francisco should not be compensated "the same" as physicians in rural Kansas and Arkansas. Today we'll talk about local market data for physician compensation. Learn more at: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/downloads/datarise-provider-compensation-data/

The 2025 commercial reimbursement rates for telemedicine are finally here. Today you'll get a glimpse of commercial reimbursement trends for telemedicine during 2025. New commercial reimbursement rates are starting to appear in payor contracts for the 17 new telemedicine codes implemented during 2025. While Medicare still has a statutory requirement to pay telemedicine physician services at in-office rates, commercial insurance carriers are not required to follow Medicare's mandate. Learn more at: https://datarise.cokergroup.com/blog/2025/05/29/telemedicine-commercial-reimbursement-trends/

Nick Newsad shares customer feedback from DataRise PCD's first year and identifies three resulting enhancements to the subscription during 2025. The new Acuvance brand name is also discussed.

Scott Becker and Nick Newsad delve deeper into Scott's entrepreneurial journey as described in his new book The Entrepreneur's Edge. This episode covers Scott's views on marketing, content strategy at Becker's Healthcare, and memorable guest speakers. Scott describes personal interactions with George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, and Nikki Haley. The Entrepreneur's Edge is available in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurs-Edge-Build-Manage-Business-ebook/dp/B0DBWYQPSJ

The most highly reimbursed hospital service during 2024 is the first of a whole new class of treatments. Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tops the 2024 list, but an even more expensive hospital treatment just hit the market. Learn more at: https://health-contract.com/blog/2024/11/12/highest-2024-hospital-fees-signal-new-trend/

Scott Becker, publisher and founder of Becker's Healthcare, discusses his new book about entrepreneurship. The Entrepreneur's Edge is available in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurs-Edge-Build-Manage-Business-ebook/dp/B0DBWYQPSJ

Surgical hospitals are unique businesses. Surgical hospitals are not ambulatory surgery centers, nor are they general acute care hospitals. Episode 26 of the Doctor Deals Podcast explains why surgical hospital business valuations should only rely upon market data from other directly comparable surgical hospitals. Learn more at: https://health-contract.com/blog/2024/10/19/surgical-hospital-business-valuation/

National compensation surveys include a lot more in Total Compensation than just Clinical Compensation. Episode 25 of the Doctor Deals Podcast shows you the difference between Total Compensation and Clinical Compensation for four different physician specialties. View the accompanying charts at: https://health-contract.com/blog/2024/10/13/total-compensation-vs-clinical-compensation-whats-the-difference/

Today we're going to talk about licensing your data for money. You probably don't realize it, but licensing is everywhere in the healthcare industry. Physician practices, hospitals, and health systems are already cutting big licensing deals and making tons of money. 

I.V. hydration therapy clinics have become very popular during the past several years. Entrepreneurs nationwide have not only discovered a new market but new challenges as well.

Cardiology is one of the most expensive specialty practices to operate. Cardiology's long list of in-office ancillary services can require millions of dollars of capital investment. This is one reason that private equity firms have invested in cardiology practice management companies.

The American Medical Association owns the copyright on the CPT® medical coding system. If you sell any type of product or software service that uses or processes CPT® codes, then you probably owe the AMA royalties.

Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) often enter into operating room rental arrangements with surgeons and patients needing treatments not covered by traditional insurance. These ASCs have adopted bundled pricing based on the amount of time surgeons and patients spend in the operating room.

This episode discuss Letters of Protection and their unique role in personal injury cases. 

Did you know malpractice expenses for the same exact physician specialty and coverage can fluctuate 1300% across the U.S.? Episode 15 of the Doctor Deals podcast reviews some never-before-seen data on physician malpractice expenses and explains how tail coverage is priced.

Did you know some of the best paid physicians in the U.S. live in South Dakota. Episode 19 of the Doctor Deals Podcast explains why some of the best paid physicians in the country live in states with the least residency training programs.

Did you know commercial reimbursement for anesthesiology can fluctuate over 800% within the exact same market? Episode 20 of the Doctor Deals Podcast talks about local market reimbursement and compensation for anesthesiology.

The hospice service industry has experienced unprecedented year-over-year growth. Many major hospice markets have doubled in size. These growth trends impact hospice business valuations in a big way.

In Doctor Deals podcast episode 23, brand new telemedicine survey data is used to identify the Fair Market Value of telemedicine management fees in states that ban the Corporate Practice of Medicine.

Physician Practice Start-Ups are most fragile during their first 12 months. Episode 24 of the Doctor Deals podcast identifies cash flow pitfalls during your first year.