Welsh Carson created US Anesthesia Partners to consolidate the market in Texas and then attempted to do the same in imaging and EM, authorities allege. 

“These requirements add a significant amount of additional time, resource, and administrative costs," the 4 groups said. 

After a Texas judge recently vacated the 600% fee increase, the feds are now proposing to up the amount by 200% from the original proposal. 

The change would require providers to obtain a psychological assessment before performing an interventional procedure used to treat chronic lower back pain.

Backers include societies representing radiologists and nuclear medicine professionals, device manufacturers, patient advocacy groups, and pharmaceutical companies. 

“These results suggest that hospitals need to substantially improve the integration of their online pricing data with frontline staff who interact with patients," investigators wrote in JAMA Internal Medicine. 

"Under-compensation of out-of-network care will threaten the viability of smaller and independent physician practices," ACR and others charged. 

Experts offered three takeaways from their query of legal claims databases, sharing their findings in Radiology.