Ascension closes AMSURG deal as FTC carves out seven centers — six go to Optum
The $3.9 billion acquisition closed June 4 under an FTC consent order requiring divestitures in five markets, with Optum's SCA Health buying six of the seven divested centers.
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Ascension completed its acquisition of AMSURG on June 4, bringing its ambulatory surgery network to roughly 300 centers. The price — about $3.9 billion, per FTC and press accounts — makes it the largest ASC transaction since UnitedHealth’s SCA deal, though Ascension’s own announcements leave the figure unstated.
The close came two days after the FTC’s consent order, which required divesting seven centers across five overlap markets — Nashville, Panama City, Tulsa, Waco, and Wichita. Six of the seven go to Optum’s SCA Health; one Florida center goes to Florida Gastroenterology Center. Ascension also accepted a 10-year prior-notice requirement on future surgery-center acquisitions in the affected markets.
The structural irony is the story: an antitrust remedy for one consolidator handed assets to the other. SCA Health already operates more than 320 centers, per VMG Health’s 2025 sector review, and a February Health Affairs study found prices charged to other insurers rose 11% — about $239 per procedure — at two dozen surgical centers after Optum acquired them.
AMSURG, which emerged from the Envision bankruptcy with more than 250 centers, gives Ascension national ambulatory scale in a single step.