Rothman Orthopaedics plans to open three new surgery centers over the next year and keep adding doctors in its Philadelphia-area market, as the large physician-owned group refocuses growth efforts on its original territory.
“Our biggest priority in the near term is strengthening our core business here, in Southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey,” Rothman CEO Christian Ellison said. “We’re not gonna ignore opportunities. We’ll be opportunistic around things that make strategic sense.”
Rothman has seen more success after following the lure of fast population growth to Florida, where it opened offices in the Orlando area in 2020 in partnership with AdventHealth.
“Florida has been a big success, because we’ve had the partnership down there with Advent Health that’s been kind of mutually beneficial,” said Ellison, who became Rothman’s CEO last fall.
The Philadelphia draw
The practice headquartered in Center City already has 24 locations in the Greater Philadelphia market. That number includes facilities that Rothman operates in partnership with Jefferson Health, Main Line Health, AtlantiCare, and RWJ Barnabas.
Rothman located itsnewest office in West Chester, an area where Rothman had little market share, according to Ellison. He also sees opportunity in other parts of the Philadelphia region and contiguous markets.
To make that growth possible, Rothman is partway through an effort to hire 41 physicians by the end of this year. That represents a 20% increase and will bring Rothman’s total to 214 physicians, the company said.
The need for ambulatory surgery centers
Rothman is a partner in nine surgery centers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and two surgical hospitals (Rothman Orthopaedic Specialty Hospital in Benslam and Physicians Care Surgical Hospital in Limerick).
Those outpatient facilities account for nearly two-thirds of Rothman’s surgeries. Even the surgical hospitals function primarily as ambulatory centers, Ellison said. The remaining third of surgeries takes place in acute-care hospitals.
“We are challenged for operating room capacity right now, both in the acute care hospitals, as well as in our ASCs, and so we feel like we need to bring more operating rooms online,” Ellison said.
What’s more, Medicare and private insurers want more procedures done in lower-cost surgery centers. In the future, insurers will pay the same price for an outpatient knee replacement whether its done in a hospital of freestanding surgery center, Ellison predicted.
Rothman hasn’t finalized locations for the new surgery centers, but Ellison said he expects two to be in Southeastern Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey. The centers will likely be in areas where Rothman has an established patient base.
The physician group prefers to open the new centers independently, as opposed to going through partnerships like it has historically. “We think we’re uniquely positioned to manage that patient experience in the surgical environment,” Ellison said.
Danny’s Guitar Shop, an independent guitar store and lesson center run by musician Dan Gold, closed its doors after 17 years in downtown Narberth.
Over nearly two decades, Gold forged connections along the Main Line, sold guitars to celebrities, brought outdoor music to Narberth’s streets, and, briefly, starred in a TV show that drew on his talents as a self-proclaimed “kibitzer.”
Gold, 72, said retirement was already on his mind when his landlord raised the rent beyond what Gold could pay. Danny’s officially closed at the end of May. As Gold prepares for the next chapter, which will be filled with swimming, traveling, and playing bassin Broken Arrow, his Neil Young cover band, he said his time in Narberth was “just perfect.”
The former storefront of Danny’s Guitar Shop in Narberth.
Gold opened Danny’s Guitar Shop in June 2009, right as the country had begun to dig itself out of the Great Recession. Guitar store Medley Music of Bryn Mawr had closed the year prior, and Center City’s 8th Street Music had moved across the bridge to New Jersey, leaving a vacuum for guitar lovers in Philly’s western suburbs.
Gold, a Newtown Square resident, grew up in Havertown and graduated from Haverford High School and Temple University. He started his career as a schoolteacher before taking a gig as a district sales manager for Fender Guitars, traveling across the region, from rural Pennsylvania to North Jersey, selling instruments and accoutrements.
Though it was risky to open a brick-and-mortar store at the heels of the financial crisis, Gold was bullish on the prospect. His mentors told him that as long as he ran guitar lessons, he’d be able to pay the rent. Gold had always loved Narberth’s “very distinct, charming personality” and was smitten with the Forrest Avenue storefront right away, with its ample natural light and welcoming front porch.
When Danny’s opened in 2009, the Main Line Times described it as having promptly “established itself as that rare kind of clubhouse — the kind where everybody’s allowed in.”
Over the years, the storefront’s shaded porch became the site of dozens of guitar recitals and summer evening jam sessions. Narberth residents gathered outside of Danny’s to talk about the news and the neighborhood gossip, and Gold always had treats for local dogs. Gold helped bring live music to Narberth during First Fridays and the annual July Fourth celebration. Ahead of a recital last fall, Gold posted on Facebook: “Students playin’ on the porch this Sunday 3:00! Bring a chair and come hang out!”
“Danny is loved around here and for good reason,” said Ed Ridgway, president of the Narberth Business Association, who took guitar lessons at Danny’s.
Ridgway described Danny’s as resembling an“old-timey barbershop.” If you asked Ridgway to make a list of 10 things that define Narberth’s downtown, he said Danny‘swould be on the list.
“He was just such a good presence in Narberth,” said Tracy Tumolo, owner of Narberth art and gift shop Sweet Mabel Store.
“This place,” Gold said. “It just fit me like a glove.”
Danny Gold (center) pictured at Danny’s Guitar Shop in Narberth in 2018 with partners Larry Freedman (left) and Ron Stanford.
Every once in a while, a star or two would stop into Danny’s Guitar Shop while visiting the area or prepping for a show at Ardmore Music Hall. The Eagles’ Timothy B. Schmit bought a few guitars and gave Gold backstage passes when the band played Atlantic City. Wilco’s John Stirratt stopped by, as did Dweezil Zappa, Frank Zappa’s son. Tumolo said Gold always encouraged them to shop at Narberth’s other businesses.
In 2014, Gold starred in a 13-episode series on WHYY-TV’s YArts cable channel, which aimed “to do for guitars what Anthony Bourdain has done” for international cuisine or ”Mike Rowe for the art of cleaning septic tanks,” according to an Inquirer story from the time. In the series, Gold explored the origins of Klezmer music, interviewed the scholar who wrote the definitive book on the history of the accordion, and spent quality time with electric guitar giant Paul Reed Smith.
Lessons were the biggest part of Gold’s business model at Danny’s, as his mentors predicted. He did a large consignment and secondhand business, as well, as he was mostly selling to first-time and beginner players.
“The lessons made me a destination store. It’s never like I carried away wheelbarrows full of money, but we were able to make a modest living and enjoy doing what we were doing,” Gold said.
Like many brick-and-mortar merchants, Gold said it became more difficult over time to keep up with the ubiquitous online marketplace. Consumers can now buy any model of guitar, in any color, at any time. Music stores across the countryhave shuttered in recent years, pointing to online shopping as a factor in their decline.
On one hand, Gold feels somewhat liberated from the day-to-day responsibilities of running his namesake storefront. On the other hand, there’s a lot he’ll miss — the people, the borough, watching the neighborhood kids grow up.
At the end of the day, Gold said, “It’s been a great run.”
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
MAX Surgical Specialty Management, a private-equity backed company consolidating oral and maxillofacial surgery groups in the Northeastern U.S., has acquired two more practices in the Philadelphia area.
The latest deal, announced Friday, gives the Hackensack, N.J., firm 12 surgeons at 12 locations in Pennsylvania. Surgeon Jason M. Auerbach founded MAX in 2022 with private-equity backing and entered Pennsylvania two years later.
The two newly acquired practices have six offices in Bucks and Chester Counties.
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons P.C. has three surgeons, and offices in Doylestown, Quakertown, Warminster, and Chalfont. Oral Associates of the Main Line has two surgeons and offices in Exton and Paoli.
MAX did not disclose financial terms of the transactions.
In addition to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, MAX has practices in Connecticut, New York, and Vermont. The company — a management services organization — is majority-owned by its physicians, Auerbach said.
Oral and maxillofacial surgeons work at the crossroads of dentistry and medicine. Most have dental degrees, but some also have medical degrees. They remove wisdom teeth, install dental implants, repair facial traumas, and treat jaw injuries, among other services.
North Jersey origins
Auerbach founded Riverside Oral Surgery in Bergen County in 2007 and grew it to 12 locations before founding MAX with private equity partners. Part of his motivation was to create a home for independent physicians, Auerbach said in a May interview.
The Philadelphia region still has a high concentration of independents, with strong patient demand. “It’s hard nowadays to be an independent oral-maxillofacial surgeon, in terms of the complexities in running a healthcare business,” Auerbach said.
Robert Mogyoros, whose Greater Philadelphia Oral Surgery is in Elkins Park, said he valued his independence above all, but decided to look for a group to joinafter the business side had gotten too challenging.
Physician groups get better prices from vendors, better deals with insurers, and have an upper hand in physician and employee recruitment, said Mogyoros, who became part of MAX last July.
“What attracted me to MAX was that it’s doctor-driven and doctor-run,” he said in a May interview.
Rothman and Kim Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, with offices in Northeast Philadelphia and Cinnaminson, was MAX’s first acquisition in Southeastern Pennsylvania. That deal also happened last year when MAX announced that it had borrowed $77 million to support growth.
When doctors sell their practices to MAX, they typically invest about 30% of the value into MAX, Auerbach said. MAX’s outside investors are MedEquity Capital near Boston, RF Investment Partners in New York, and Kian Capital in Charlotte, N.C.
Editor’s note: This article was update to correct the year when MAX made its first Pennsylvania acquisition.
Chester County’s only enclosed mall will soon shut its doors for good.
After five decades as a retail hub, the nearly 1-million-square-foot Exton Square Mall is set to close Tuesday, June 30, according to mall owner Abrams Realty & Development. The Elkins Park-based company has been mired in a legal dispute with local officials over its redevelopment.
Once a bustling destination that sparked a commercial boom in Exton, the complex has been languishing for years with a desolate interior and only a handful of stores.
Peter Abrams said his firm had no choice but to shutter the mall.
“Operating the interior of the property has become untenable due to deteriorating conditions and rising utility costs,” he said in a statement.
A handful of shoppers walk into the Exton Square Mall in November.
The Boscov’s, Main Line Health offices, and Round 1 entertainment venue will remain open.
Brian Dunn, chair of the West Whiteland Township Board of Supervisors, declined to comment on the mall’s closure, citing the ongoing litigation.
Abrams, who bought the mall from PREIT for more than $34 million, wants to transform the site into a mixed-use complex with hundreds of townhouses, rental apartments, a 55+ community, and a town center with shops, restaurants, medical offices, and green space.
This fall, despite the planning commission’s recommendation, Dunn and fellow Township Supervisor Rajesh Kumbhardare rejected Abrams’ proposal over sewer, traffic, and density concerns. Abrams then sued the supervisors in an attempt to reverse their decision, saying the plan meets the township’s zoning requirements.
Litigation between Abrams and the supervisors was ongoing as of Wednesday, according to the company, which wants to complete the project by 2028.
The Exton Square Mall opened in 1973 with more than 100 stores, including a Strawbridge & Clothier.
The mall’s construction would prove a harbinger of Exton’s commercialization. “Developers seem bent on heaving this lazy rural area into the mainstream of metropolitan Philadelphia,” The Inquirer reported in 1973.
In the 1990s, the Exton Bypass made the area easier to access from the city and other suburbs. And by the 2000s, more retail complexes, including the Main Street at Exton town center, had opened near Exton Square Mall, which also underwent an expansion.
The Exton Square Mall is shown in 2022, when tenants were already starting to dwindle.
The community has seen a subsequent rise in residential development, with millennials and baby boomers fueling demand for high-end, low-maintenance living. In the past five years, about 3,000 luxury apartments and townhouses have been built in the 13-square-mile township, supervisor Kumbhardare said this fall, and each new complex is at least 90% occupied.
On Tuesday, as word spread about the mall’s closing date, one user posted a video on Facebook with the caption: “It’s official. They’re tearing down the Exton Square Mall, and with it, my entire childhood.”
“They can tear the building down, but they can’t take away the memories of buying graphic tees at Wet Seal and CD shopping at FYE. RIP.”
This week in Philly music features two nights at the Met with electronic music artist Subtronics, Mexican pop rock band Maná in South Philly, four nights with Moe. on the Main Line, Jimmy Webb in Wilmington, and Cat Power celebrating the 20th anniversary of her The Greatest album.
Wednesday, March 4
Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy play R.E.M.
Actor Michael Shannon has played James Garfield (in Death by Lightning) and George Jones (alongside Jessica Chastain in George and Tammy) and now he’s playing Michael Stipe. Or at least singing his songs. Along with guitarist Jason Narducy, Shannon has been moonlighting in recent years in this R.E.M. tribute band. This time, the band is playing 1986’s Life’s Rich Pageant, and more. 8 p.m., Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden, utphilly.com
Jesse Welles
Before Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis” or Billy Bragg’s “City of Heroes,” there was Jesse Welles’ “Join ICE.” The best of Welles’ many protest songs is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment satire that stings with humor. “There’s a hole in my soul that just rages,” Welles sings, “but look at me now, I’m putting folks in cages.” 8 p.m., Fillmore Philly, 29 E. Allen St., thefillmorephilly.com
Sonny Landreth & the Iguanas
It’s the in-between time between Mardi Gras and New Orleans Jazz Fest, which makes it Louisiana music season. Two top-shelf ambassadors share a bill in Bucks County, in Breaux Bridge-based slide guitar great Sonny Landreth and NOLA roots-rock band the Iguanas. 8 p.m., Wednesday, Sellersville Theater, 84 W. Temple Ave., st94.com and 8 p.m., Thursday, Elkton Music Hall, 107 North St., ElktonMusicHall.com
Thursday, March 5
Moe.
They named themselves after “Five Guys Named Moe,” the 1942 hit by swing blues greats Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, though none of their name is actually Moe. The longstanding six-member Buffalo, N.Y., jam band is settling in for four shows, starting Thursday. 8 p.m., Ardmore Music Hall, ardmoremusichall.com
Mx Lonely play Nikki Lopez on South Street on Thursday.
Mx Lonely & Wax Jaw
Top-notch shoegaze-slash-punk rock double bill. Mx Lonely is a Brooklyn band, fronted by singer Rae Haas, who just released their musically and thematically layered debut, All Monsters on Julia’s War, the West Philly label helmed by They Are Gutting a Body of Water’s Doug Dulgarian. Openers are terrific Philly punk quartet Wax Jaw, whose 2025 album It Takes Guts! was one of the strongest local releases of the year. 8 p.m., Nikki Lopez, 304 South St., @nikkilopezphilly
Lindsey Webster
Woodstock, N.Y., vocalist Lindsey Webster, who topped the contemporary jazz charts with her 2016 hit “Fool Me Once,” has just released her seventh album, Music in Me, on New Jersey’s Shanachie label. She’s playing two nights as part of Gerald Veasley’s Unscripted Jazz series. 6:30 and 9 p.m. Thursday and 7 and 9 p.m. Friday, South Jazz Kitchen, 600 N. Broad St., southjazzkitchen.com
Philly Pogues tribute band Bar Dust play Free at Noon at World Cafe Live on Friday and Anchor Rock Club in Atlantic City on Saturday.
Friday, March 6
Bar Dust
Shane MacGowan’s spirit lives on with Bar Dust, Philadelphia’s premier Pogues tribute band, the collective featuring members of Modern Baseball, Foxtrot & the Get Down, and the Menzingers. With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, the punk folk septet is having a busy month, starting with a Free at Noon on Friday, followed by Saturday night at Anchor Rock Club in Atlantic City, and dates at Johnny Brenda’s on March 14 and John & Peter’s in New Hope on March 17. The band has recorded two Pogues-style original songs, including the single “Three Castles Burning,” on its new Bar Dust From the Studio EP. Noon, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., xpn.org and 8 p.m., Anchor Rock Club, 247 S. New York Ave., anchorrockclub.com
No More Dysphoria VII
This benefit for the self-described “queer-run nonprofit with the goal of helping trans + nonbinary individuals financially through major aspects of their transitions” has a loaded lineup. Headliners are Oceanator, the Elise Okusami-led band whose new Things I Never Said was made with Grammy-winning Philly producer Will Yip. Also on the bill are Frances Quinlan of Hop Along, Hit Like a Girl, and Universal Girlfriend, which features guitar hero Marissa Paternoster and Augusta Koch of Gladie. 8 p.m., First Unitarian Church, 2125 Walnut St., r5productions.com
Robert Glasper performs on the Fairmount Park Stage during The Roots Picnic at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on Sunday, June 2, 2024. He plays Union Transfer on Friday.
Robert Glasper
Pianist, producer, and bandleader Robert Glasper’s music spans R&B, hip-hop, jazz, and beyond. He’s won five Grammys and released two albums in 2025. Code Derivation featured jazz instrumentalist like Keyon Harrold and Walter Smith III, and Keys to the City, Vol. 1, showcased guests Black Thought, Norah Jones, Bilal, Yebba, and MeShell Ndegeocello. You never know who might turn up at a Glasper concert. 8 p.m., Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., utphilly.com
Lindsey Webster plays two shows each night at South Jazz Kitchen on Thursday and Friday.
Baroness
Savannah, Ga.-born and Philly-based heavy rock band Baroness plays a hometown show in support of its sixth album Stone, a muscular, melodic effort that as always features bandleader John Baizley’s distinctively trippy album cover art work. Commitment and Blood Vulture open. 8 p.m. Friday, Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org
Subtronics, the electronic dance music project of Philadelphia DJ-producer Jesse Kardon, plays two nights at the Met Philly this weekend.
Subtronics
Jesse Kardon doesn’t normally land on the list of the biggest music artists in Philadelphia, but he should. Kardon, who records and performs as Subtronics, is an electronic dance music phenom on an ascending career arc. The son of longtime Philly music business fixture (and former Hooters road manager) Rich Kardon, Jesse grew up in Lower Merion, lives in Chestnut Hill, and has become a major player in dubstep and EDM in general over the past decade. He’s headlined the Sphere in Las Vegas and Red Rocks in Colorado, and his two shows at the Met Philly this weekend are timed to the release of his new 10-song EP, Fibonacci Pt 2: Infinity.8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Met Philly, 858 N. Broad St., themetphilly.com
Jimmy Webb plays the Baby Grand in Wilmington on Saturday.
Saturday, March 7
Jimmy Webb
The songwriting legend who penned “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” will be singing songs and telling stories at the Baby Grand in Wilmington. And now he has a new one to tell. Alysa Liu skated to Donna Summer’s recording of Webb’s “MacArthur Park” during her gold medal-winning figure skating program at the Olympics in Italy last month, and bringing what Webb has called his “old, beat-up song,” originally recorded by Richard Harris, an audience with a new generation. 8 p.m., The Grand, 818 N. Market St., Wilmington, thegrandwilmington.org
Maná
In 2025, Maná became the first Spanish-language band nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The pop-rock band from Guadalajara, which has sold over 40 million records, is on the road with its “Vivir Sin Aire” tour, named for its 1992 power ballad. 8 p.m., Xfinity Mobile Arena, 3601 S. Broad St., xfinitymobilearena.com
Cat Power plays Union Transfer on Sunday.
Sunday, March 8
Cat Power
It’s been 20 years since Cat Power — the remarkable song interpreter Chan Marshall — released her greatest album, appropriately titled The Greatest. Marshall will lead a six-piece band featuring Philly guitarist, music director, and former Delta 72 leader Gregg Foreman. She’ll play the Memphis soul album in its entirety and also reach into her catalog and hopefully include her version of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” from her new EP, Redux.8 p.m., Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., utphilly.com
Philip C. Ricci, 90, formerly of Conshohocken, retired Catholic monsignor, founding pastor emeritus at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in North Wales, talented pianist, singer, artist, and mentor, died Saturday, Feb. 14, of complications after a fall at Villa St. Joseph senior living community in Darby.
Ordained in 1965 by Cardinal John Krol, Msgr. Ricci was named founding pastor of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in 1987. Over the next 23 years, until his retirement in 2010, Msgr. Ricci worked many 16-hour days, made spiritual house calls on bicycle, spurred significant fundraising, and helped grow the Montgomery County parish from 600 founding families to 3,500.
The Inquirer wrote about his house calls in 1987 and opened the story with: “His charge is to spread the word of God, and the Rev. Philip C. Ricci does so in a most unconventional fashion — on a 20-year-old bicycle from Sears.”
His niece, Christine, said: “He could talk to anybody about anything.”
Msgr. Ricci lived and held services in a 200-year-old farmhouse from 1987 until the new church building was completed. Pope John Paul II elevated him to monsignor in 2003.
He was active with school activities, and his homilies were often about mercy and compassion. In 2010, he told members of his congregation at a retirement celebration: “We must always accept people where they are and then allow God’s grace to work in patient understanding.”
In an online tribute, colleagues at St. Matthew Parish in Conshohocken said his “kindness, wisdom, and steady presence touched countless lives.” Others called him “the perfect priest” and “the epitome of what a Catholic priest should be.” One friend said: “He was without a doubt the nicest person I have ever met.”
In a tribute, his family said: “His priesthood was not simply a role. It was the core of who he was.”
Msgr. Ricci first served in the 1960s as a chaplain at the old Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia and pastor at the Riverview Home for the Aged and St. Margaret’s Home for Girls. He went on to be assistant pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Ambler, St. Stanislaus Parish in Lansdale, St. Anastasia Parish in Newtown Square, and St. Margaret Parish in Narberth.
In 1974, he became spiritual director of the college division at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He also earned a master’s degree in spirituality from Creighton University in Nebraska.
Ministering to people, no matter where he was, he told the Main Line Times in 2010, was personal. “You don’t go out forming community,” he said. “You go out and form one-on-one. I can’t separate who I am as a man, as a Christian, and as a priest.”
The Inquirer published a story about Monsignor Ricci making spiritual house calls on his bicycle in 1987.
Msgr. Ricci played piano and sang before church services and after Communion. He directed choirs, and friends presented him with his own piano at his retirement.
He returned to his family home in Conshohocken after leaving Mary, Mother of the Redeemer but continued to assist others at nearby parishes and visit those in hospitals and nursing homes. “Father was a Renaissance man, an artist, musician, writer, deep thinker,” a former colleague said on Facebook. “He could speak about the liturgy or the Eagles, the football team or the band. He related well to everyone regardless of age, religion, or background.”
Philip Cosmo Ricci was born Sept. 26, 1935, in Conshohocken. He graduated from the old Conshohocken High School, took night classes at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and, inspired by his parents, entered St. Charles Borromeo Seminary to study the priesthood.
“When the Lord wants you, he gets you,” he told the Main Line Times. “I couldn’t fight it. It was always there.”
Monsignor Ricci’s house calls were featured in this 1987 Inquirer article.
He played piano in a dance band when he was young and enjoyed gardening. He was good at drawing and cooking. He followed the Eagles, Phillies, and 76ers, and invented a beanbag toss game the family played at gatherings.
It was fitting, his niece said, that he died on Valentine’s Day because he embraced love and service to others. “Faith for Uncle Phil was never theoretical,” she said. “It was lived. It was action. It was presence.”
In addition to his niece, Msgr. Ricci is survived by his brothers, John and Francis, and other relatives. A sister died earlier.
Six of eight nonprofit health systems in Southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware posted improved financial results for the six months that ended Dec. 31 compared to the year before. Still,half of them had operating losses, according to financial data reported last month to bond investors.
Jefferson Health and Temple University Health System reported results that were worse than the same period last year.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia remained the region’s most profitable health system, with a 6.2% operating margin, up from 5.2% the year before. CHOP posted $2.7 billion in total revenue in the last six months of 2025, up from $2.4 billion the year before.
Nonprofit health systems in South Jersey, such as Cooper, Inspira, and Virtua, do not report comparable financial results until they file their annual audited financials statements in the spring.
Here’s a summary:
Jefferson Health: Jefferson had an operating loss of $201 million in the six months that ended Dec. 31, compared to a $55 million loss the year before. The $201 million loss included a $64.7 million restructuring charge related to severance for 600 to 700 people laid off in October and other changes designed to improve efficiency in the 32-hospital system that stretches from South Jersey to Scranton, Jefferson said.
University of Pennsylvania Health System: Penn had an operating profit of $189 million in the first six months of fiscal 2026, up from $117 million in the same period a year ago. Operating income increased, even after Penn put $43 million into reserves for medical malpractice claims. Two years ago, Penn had recorded charges totaling $90 million for the same purpose.
ChristianaCare: ChristianaCare, Delaware’s largest health system, posted a $37 million operating gain, up from $33 million in the first six months of fiscal 2025. The health system’s revenue rose 9% to $1.75 billion, helped in part by its expansion into Pennsylvania. ChristianaCare took over five of Crozer Health’s freestanding outpatient locations in Delaware County.
Temple University Health System: Temple had a $50.5 million operating loss in the six months that ended Dec. 31. In the same period the year before, Temple reported a $13.5 million operating gain. The nonprofit attributed some of the losses to costs related to the opening of Temple Women & Families Hospital in September.
Main Line Health: Main Line had an $8.7 million operating profit in the six months that ended Dec. 31. Main Line’s swing from an $8.9 million loss in the same period of 2024 benefited from a change in accounting for depreciation that reduced expenses. Without that change, Main Line would have had another loss.
Redeemer Health: Redeemer reported an operating loss of $14.7 million, compared to a loss of $19.5 million the year before. The improvement happened even though the health system in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs increased revenue by just 1.2%, to $227 million.
Main Line Health appointed Anna Michelle Brandt president of its Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, the nonprofit health system announced Monday.
Brandt mostly recently worked as chief operating officer at University Hospital, a 519-bed academic medical center in Newark, N.J., which Main Line’s new CEO Ed Jimenez led before taking over at Main Line.
The new Lankenau president also worked previously with Jimenez at UF Health Shands Hospital in Florida.
Brandt succeeds Katie Galbraith, who left Lankenau in September after about three years to lead New England Baptist Hospital in Boston.
Lankenau, a level 2 trauma center, sits in Lower Merion Township at the intersection of West Philadelphia and Montgomery and Delaware Counties.
At AMS Surgery Center in suburban Montgomery County, patients can park right in front of the entrance, walk through just a few doors, and undergo cardiac procedures in a sterile operating room with equipment as high-tech as in any hospital procedure room.
In the year and a half since its first patient underwent a cardiac catheterization, the center has performed more than 1,000 cardiac procedures that previously required patients to go to full-service hospitals.
The Horsham center showcases a new front as sophisticated healthcare procedures move to freestanding outpatient medical facilities, promising to save patients money. The shift also adds to the financial pressures facing the region’s hospital-centered health systems.
Four centers have opened or are in the final stages of approvals in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Their arrival comes after state lawmakers in 2022 broadly expandedthe types of procedures allowed outside hospitals to include cardiac catheterizations, pacemaker implants, and other treatments that until then had to be done in a hospital.
Pennsylvania is the first Northeastern state to allow the minimally invasive procedures in freestanding surgery centers, but Southern states like Florida, Louisiana, and Texas have permitted the practice for decades, experts said. Research has found surgery centers generally are as safe as outpatient departments in hospitals.
An independent physicians group, Bryn Mawr Medical Specialists Association, opened Heart & Vascular Center of the Main Line — the Philadelphia region’s first such center — in late 2022. in Bryn Mawr. AMS Surgery Center in Horsham performed its first procedure in the fall of 2024, initially treating only Medicare patients. Itadded patients with private insurance last summer.
The market has continued torapidly expand:ReVaMP Heart & Vascular Surgery Center in Center City started treating Medicare patients last fall. The Ambulatory Cardiovascular Center of Pennsylvania, near King of Prussia, expects to perform its first procedures on patients next month.
Medicare pays the centers about a third less than hospital outpatient departments for the same procedures, but the centers have significantly lower costs, allowing them to be profitable. Medicare pays physicians the same wherever procedures are done.
Independent cardiology groups traditionally have performed interventional procedures, such as implanting stents and pacemakers, in hospitals. Some are jumping at the opportunity to expand through the surgery centers, where they can have a financial stake in the entire operation.
“We’ve always been very fiercely independent, fiercely entrepreneurial, and patient-centered,” said Richard Borge, an AMS interventional cardiologist who is medical director for the group’s surgery center.
How much cardiac care — among the most profitable business lines for hospitals — will move out of hospital outpatient departments remains unknown. But cardiac surgical clinics will not take over heart care to the extent seen when outpatient orthopedic centers began offering hip and joint replacements,predicted Lauren Clementi, a senior vice president at Kaufman Hall, a Chicago consulting firm.
“This one’s a little trickier because the acuity of patients,” she said.
Cardiologists will continue treating many patients with complex medical needs in hospitals, which remain the only option for riskier procedures such as open-heart surgeries.
Gregory Schmitt went to AMS Surgery Center to undergo procedures for a heart stent and stents in both legs.The retired machine-shop owner, who lives in Ivyland, called such centers great for patients.
“I highly recommend it. It’s much easier than trying to navigate a hospital,” Schmitt said.
How we got here
Healthcare has been shifting awayfrom requiring overnight hospital stays, even for common procedures like cataract surgery.The trend starteddecades ago with same-day procedures in hospitals, followed by the rise of freestanding surgery centers.
In cardiology, people now commonly receivestents and pacemakers as outpatient care. But until recently, doctors had to implant the devices in a hospital.
“Once upon a time, every patient we cathed had to spend the night in the hospital,” said veteran cardiologist Mark Victor, referring to cardiac catheterization.
With the rise of outpatient procedures,Victor said, the question for many clinicians became: “If they’re hospital ambulatory, why do they have to be in the hospital at all?”
Victor has long advocated for the adoption of outpatient cardiology proceduresas the CEO of Cardiology Consultants of Philadelphia. Thelarge cardiology practice joined last year a national private-equity backed group, Cardiovascular Logistics, and will soon start performing surgical procedures at the center opening near King of Prussia.
In 2020, Medicare started paying for outpatient cardiac catheterizations — which entail running a catheter through a blood vessel in the thigh or wrist to examine the heart and install devices like stents.
Richard Borge is medical director of AMS Cardiology Surgery Center in Horsham, whose arrival is moving advanced cardiac care from hospitals to outpatient clinics.
Even then, Pennsylvania rules required cardiac catheterizations to occur in an acute-care hospital, according to Stephen Abresch, director of government affairs for the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, a national trade group in Alexandria, Va.
Pennsylvania lawmakers cleared the way for expansion byeliminating that restriction in 2022 as part of a broad expansion of what the state’s surgery centers were allowed to do. “It had been a quarter century since the state had gone in and reviewed that,” he said.
The Heart & Vascular Center of the Main Line has scheduled its first cardiac ablations this week. Horsham’s AMSaims to start offering those procedures in June. Victor’s King of Prussia groupexpects to add ablations in the future as well.
Impact on hospitals
It is too soon to know how the new surgery centers will impact the region’s existing health systems. In some cases, independent cardiologists generate significant patient numbers forhospitals’ cath labs.
After Bryn Mawr Medical Specialists opened its cardiovascular surgery center near Main Line Health’s Bryn Mawr Hospital, the private group performed fewer procedures on low-risk patients at the hospital.
To sustain patient volumes, Main Line has increased collaboration with other physician practices, while continuing to treat an“older patient population, whose more complex health conditions require the advanced expertise and emergency support only a hospital setting can provide,” officials said in a statement.
In Horsham, most of the patients coming to AMS would have gone toJefferson Abington Hospital before the surgery center opened in partnership with Atria Health, a private-equity backed group, Borge said.
Jefferson declined to comment.
King of Prussia’s Ambulatory Cardiovascular Center of Pennsylvania is opening through anunusual four-way partnership involving Cardiology Consultants of Philadelphia, Cardiovascular Logistics, SCA (a unit of UnitedHealth’s Optum), and the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
“Ours is not going to seriously impact any one hospital system, which they’re all relieved about,” said Victor, who is also president of the Mid-Atlantic region for Cardiovascular Logistics. He said other health systems were invited to invest in the surgery center, but only Penn did so.
Penn declined to comment for this article. On the Alvarez & Marsal What’s Your Moonshot podcast, the health system’s chief operating officer, Michele Volpe, recently said the system needs ”to move a bit faster in taking much of the work that we are doing in inpatient ORs and moving them into outpatient or ambulatory freestanding ORs.”
AMS Cardiology’s ambulatory surgery center in Horsham is one of four new cardiovascular surgery centers in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Center City’s ReVaMP Health & Vascular Surgery Center wantsto bring in cardiologists from nonaffiliated practices,and even the city’s big health systems. The facility opened last year, spearheaded by Re-Vasc Med Professionals’ two interventional cardiologists in partnership with Surgery Partners, a publicly traded manager of surgery centers nationwide.
“I’m 100% sure this is going to be the trend of the future,” Re-Vasc CEO and founder Jon George said.
A health insurer’s perspective
Richard Snyder, a top executive at Independence Blue Cross, the largest health insurer in Southeastern Pennsylvania, has for years watched joint replacements and other procedures shift from hospitals to lower-cost surgery centers.
The financial impact goes beyond the lower prices at surgery centers, he said, expecting that hospitals will not simply cede these patients to new competitors.
Some hospitals might decide to take a lower payment for outpatient procedures. “Traditionally, that happens when we have capacity in lower-cost settings,” he said.
At the same time, Medicare is pushing to pay the same price for services, wherever they are performed. “Hospitals, by necessity, will need to move some things to lower-cost settings in order to not lose money on them,” Snyder said.
“Why would you not want to study the thing that lets you study,” said Schechtman-Taylor, a senior from New York City. “The brain, that’s our entire world.”
Neuroscience has become the most popular major on the highly selective liberal arts campus on Philadelphia’s Main Line, counting nearby Bryn Mawr College students who also take classes at Haverford. And it’s only been around since 2021 when the two colleges — which have had a minor in the discipline since 2013 — decided to administer the joint major.
At Haverford, there were 24 majors the year it started; now there are 60. Bryn Mawr saw similar growth and currently has 49. Enrollment in Haverford’s neuroscience classes including both Bryn Mawr and Haverford students grew from 154 in 2014 to nearly 800 last fall.
“We knew that neuroscience was going to be popular, but we did not anticipate this growth,” said Helen White, Haverford’s provost, who noted the school recently hired another neuroscience professor to accommodate more students.
The major’s popularity is also growing at schools around the Philadelphia region — and across the country. Students and professors say neuroscience is popular because it’s interdisciplinary, involving psychology, biology, and chemistry, and can lead to a variety of careers. It can also be personal, because it involves studying diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, which have no cures, and the treatment of strokes and traumatic brain injuries.
“I would say about 90% of my students are coming into my lab because they have someone in their family with one of these diseases,” said Rob Fairman, a Haverford biology professor whose research focuses on neuroscience.
Haverford senior Alina Schechtman-Taylor, 21, of New York City, works as a teacher assistant in professor Laura Been’s lab.
A growing major
In 2008, 110 colleges nationally offered neuroscience majors; now, it’s about 330, said Raddy Ramos, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the New York Institute of Technology. Ramos, who coauthored studies on the topic, said there were more than 2,000 neuroscience graduates in 2008; in 2019, that number had grown to more than 7,200.
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Pennsylvania is a hot spot, with 36 colleges having programs in 2022-23, Ramos said — more than than any other state.
Drexel University, which has had a minor since 2015, launched its undergraduate major in neuroscience in 2024.
“We have seen a 45% increase in applications over the last two years,” a university spokesperson said.
Pennsylvania State University in November announced it was launching two new undergraduate majors in neuroscience, one offered by the biology department and the other by the biobehavioral health department.
Students look for sections of rat brains that match the sections projected on the screen in a Haverford College lab.
Neuroscience has become especially popular among pre-med majors, school officials say. Otherpotential career paths include biotechnology, pharmacology, psychology, and neuroengineering, while somestudents go on to law school, business, or public policy.
“There’s a lot more awareness that mental health conditions are due to changes in the brain, and people want to understand that,” said Lisa Briand, associate professor and program director for Temple University’s neuroscience program.
At Temple, neuroscience has become the fourth largest of 30 majors in liberal arts, Briand said. The psychology department a few years ago changed its name to psychology and neuroscience, she said.
At the University of Pennsylvania a decade ago, 100 to 120 neuroscience majors graduated annually, said Lori Flanagan-Cato, associate professor of psychology and codirector of the undergraduate neuroscience program.
“Twice in the past 3 years we have had over 150,” she said.
Swarthmore College, a highly selective small liberal arts college, graduated 10 to 12 neuroscience majors a year about a decade ago, said Frank Durgin, professor of psychology who oversees the program.
“This year, we anticipate graduating 24 majors,” he said. “Next year, it’s 30.”
The college has added two professors in the last two years to accommodate growth, he said.
Why students study neuroscience
In a lab at Haverford one afternoon last month, 16 students in white lab coats poked with paintbrush tips at thin slices of rat brain in preservative fluid, preparing to stain them to look for which neurons were activated. Some of the rats received the drug Ritalin, commonly used for attention deficit disorder, while others did not. Students were trying to discern differences in their brains when they performed certain tasks, said Laura Been, associate professor of psychology and director of the bi-college neuroscience program.
A neuroscience student works with sections of rats’ brains in a lab at Haverford College.
“We can … try to learn something more about how this sort of drug treatment impacts the brain,” said Been, whose area of interest is behavioral neuroendocrinology, which looks at the relationship between hormones, the brain, and behavior.
Students in Been’s class had varied reasons for studying neuroscience.
Emily Black, visiting assistant professor of neuroscience at Haverford College, helps Savannah Shaw, 22, of Downingtown, during neuroscience lab work. “I really like the variety of the classes we can take in the major,” said Shaw, a senior who plans to go to medical school, possibly to become a neurologist. “You can go more the psychology route or go more biology.”
Sophia Lipari, 21, a junior from Jacksonville, Fla., whose father is a reproductive endocrinologist, is interested in hormones and the field of fertility.
Riley Fass, 20, a junior from Claremont, Calif., wants to be a special-education teacher. She already sees the connection between neuroscience and her job as a teacher’s assistant at a school where children have traumatic brain injuries and cerebral palsy.
“The topics we discuss — an injury here will result in this — I can actually see it in my students,” she said.
Iris Goxhaj (left), 21, of Northeast Philadelphia, and Riley Fass, 20, of Claremont, Calif., work with sections of rats’ brains in a lab at Haverford College.
Deeya Abrol’s interest was stoked when she worked with a child on the autism spectrum as a swim instructor. Abrol, 22, a senior from Los Gatos, Calif., plans to go to medical school.
Schechtman-Taylor meanwhile wants to pursue biomedical engineering and specifically developing medicines for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.
“I want to work on the treatment side,” she said.
Fairman, the Haverford biology professor, said a recent graduate’s mother had died of Huntington’s disease, meaning she has a 50% chance of getting it, he said. She worked in his lab and wanted to be involved in hisresearchon protein clumping in the brain and its effect on diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Rob Fairman, a professor of biology at Haverford College, and student Liv Davis are testing the effects of natural products on animal models with neurodegenerative diseases.
Junior Liv Davis, 21, wanted to help find a cure for Parkinson’s, which struck her grandmother in 2020.
“She’s had two falls in the last year and a half because it’s progressed pretty quickly,” said Davis, of Lanoka Harbor, N.J. “It’s hard to see someone you love so much live with it, but it makes it all the more rewarding to work toward fixing it.”
Davis, who has worked in Fairman’s lab since her freshman year, tried to get into an introduction to neuroscience class early on. But there wasn’t room. She ended up majoring in biology, which she thinks probably would have happened anyway.
About half the students working in Fairman’s lab are neuroscience majors, he said.
Davis is currently studying the effect of a chemical on sleeping fruit flies that have been genetically modified to carry the protein associated with Parkinson’s.
Last summer, she received an inaugural research fellowship funded by Shamir Khan, a Haverford alumnus and psychologist who was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s.
Her grandmother was glad she could continue the research, said Davis, who plans to become a doctor.
“She always jokes with me,” Davis said. “‘Give me a spoonful of that chemical, whatever it is. If you need a test subject, you let me know.’”
