New Jersey moving to aid surgery centers

Philadelphia Inquirer, January 24, 2008

The New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners and Senate President Richard J. Codey are working to extricate the state's outpatient surgical centers from a difficult legal position. A judge ruled last year that doctors who owned a center in North Jersey were violating a heretofore unenforced state law prohibiting self-referral. The board, which regulates the centers, is now proposing an emergency amendment to its regulations that would sidestep the issue of self-referral by broadening the definition of a doctor's medical office.