Becker's ASC Review

19 GASTROENTEROLOGY One GI closes 2nd deal of year in Indiana By Patsy Newitt O ne GI added Terre Haute, Ind.-based Digestive Health Associates to its network, the gastroenterology management company said Jan. 13. This is the Nashville, Tenn.-based company's second deal of the new year — it also added Cleveland-based Digestive Disease Consultants. Digestive Health Associates, opened by Rajiv Sharma, MD, offers proce- dures including endoscopy, colonoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, among others. Founded in April 2020, private equity-backed One GI provides capital and management services to partner practices to foster growth. The company has practices in Tennessee, Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. n Suburban Dallas property with gastroenterology ASC acquired By Patsy Newitt A medical building housing the Digestive Health Center of Allen (Texas) was acquired by real estate company Montecito Medical. The 10,860-square-foot building, opened in 2020, houses an ASC with one operating room, three procedure rooms and 14 pre-operation rooms and post-anesthesia recovery bays, Montecito said in December. Montecito did not disclose the financial details. The acquisition in suburban Dallas is the latest in Montecito's string of Dallas-area, gastroenterology-focused real estate buys. Digestive Health Center of Allen is an affiliate of Dallas-based GI Alli- ance, which supports more than 625 independent gastroenterologists operating in Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington. n GI suturing tool to hit market in 2022 after FDA approval By Marcus Robertson B elgium-based Endo Tools Therapeutics earned FDA approval for its Endomina system for endoscopic suture placement and ap- proximation of gastrointestinal soft tissue. The firm said Jan. 18 that the system consists of a triangulation platform and an instrument for tissue piercing and approximation that can be affixed to an array of different endoscopes. The system enables suturing similar to what a laparoscopic approach allows, while using only natural orifices for an incisionless procedure. Endo Tools Therapeutics said it's planning a limited U.S. market release in the first half of 2022, with a wider release later in the year. n Funds misrouted to 'unknown bank account': Florida GI group hit with data breach, wire fraud By Alan Condon B radenton-based Florida Digestive Health Spe- cialists is notifying more than 212,500 indi- viduals of a December 2020 breach involving business email compromise and fraud. On Dec. 27, 2021, the 49-physician group informed Maine's attorney general office that an email breach discovered a year earlier involving wire fraud has af- fected 212,509 individuals, 11 of whom were Maine residents. An employee on Dec. 16, 2020, noted suspicious email activity that "resulted in suspicious emails having been sent from their employee account," and Florida Digestive discovered five days later that "funds had been misrouted to an unknown bank account," according to a Dec. 27 statement. An investigation found that a limited number of employee email accounts were accessed by unau- thorized users. Florida Digestive investigated the accounts, de- scribed by the practice as "voluminous," to deter- mine what information they contained; whether they constituted personal information, protected health information or other confidential information; and to whom that information belonged. e process took "a considerable amount of time," concluding on Nov. 19, according to the practice. Protected health information that could have been exposed in the breach include Social Security num- bers, financial information, dates of birth, diagnoses and health insurance information. Florida Digestive said it has taken steps to bolster its security systems, such as resetting passwords and implementing multifactor authentication systems. It also installed additional security controls, strength- ened password protocols and reconfigured its firewall. e practice, which has more than 30 locations across Florida, also is offering complimentary credit monitoring and identity restoration services for 12 months. n

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