Surgeons perform about 600,000 hysterectomies per year in the US, but less than 1% of these take place in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Richard Rosenfield, MD, is trying to change that. Before he founded Pearl Surgi-Center in Portland, Oregon, Dr Rosenfield performed outpatient hysterectomies at several local hospitals as an…

Read More

If a fancy hotel can make its guests feel well cared for, why can’t a surgery center do the same? Spivey Station Surgery Center in Jonesboro, Georgia, discovered that using principles of hospitality could take it beyond excellent patient care to higher levels of patient satisfaction and staff morale.  …

Read More

Computers and computer-driven devices have transformed the way healthcare is delivered, and use of the technology has led to greater efficiency, error reduction, and the ability to perform some previously impossible procedures. However, it is not always easy to incorporate computer tools into traditional activities such as quality tracking and…

Read More

Nobody wants to come to work some morning and find a team of inspectors waiting. There is nothing like a surprise exam to make one nervous. Yet inspections are necessary—and not necessarily evil. Ambulatory surgery center (ASC) inspections are required for Medicare certification by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid…

Read More

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will delay implementation of the new quality reporting measure ASC-11, Cataracts: Improvement in Patient’s Visual Function within 90 Days Following Cataract Surgery, until January 1, 2015. CMS intends to issue proposals regarding data collection for this measure in the upcoming 2015 proposed…

Read More

Less than 2 years after the New England Baptist Outpatient Care Center was imagined, its doors opened in September 2013. The sparkling new ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in the Boston suburb of Dedham, Massachusetts, isn’t far from the country’s oldest timber-framed house, the Fairbanks House, built in 1637—long before building…

Read More

With fewer new ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) forming each year and more merging back into hospitals, it has become popular to describe the industry as “mature.” It’s not yet time for an obituary, however. Improved technology, bolstered by healthcare reform, is driving a transition to outpatient treatment, and, when it…

Read More

The primary function of an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) is simple and easily described: to perform surgery for which patients can be discharged within 24 hours, to do this efficiently, safely, and cost effectively, and to collect adequate, timely payment. The path to achieving these results is not so simple.…

Read More

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is affecting every part of the healthcare system, including ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Whether it will help or hinder ASCs, however, will depend on how adept they are at managing changes in the way they are paid and how they interact with…

Read More

Innovations in surgical techniques, anesthesia, and equipment, along with the drive to decrease healthcare costs, are increasing the number of patients and procedures deemed suitable for outpatient surgery. Among the elective procedures now being performed at ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are total joint replacements. The buzz at recent conferences has…

Read More