U.S. News & World Report will publish its third annual Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers ratings on Mar. 17, with some refinements to its methodology.
The program seeks to identify high-performing ASCs for consumers across the specialties of Colonoscopy & Endoscopy, Orthopedics & Spine, Urology, and Ophthalmology.
The outlet says that its Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers ratings are built on “objective outcomes of patient care following ambulatory surgical procedures, including complications, unplanned admissions, and emergency department visits.” New methodological refinements have been introduced for this year’s ratings, however:
- Previously, ratings were assigned based on a probability distribution. “Depending on the normality of the composite score distribution, as few as about 10% of ASCs were rated high performing under these standards.” For 2026, “in order to reflect the lower risk and higher safety of ambulatory procedures,” U.S. News & World Report has expanded its high performing ratings to the top 15% of ASCs, based on their composite scores. “The lowest rating tier will include the lowest performing 10% of ASCs,” the outlet adds.
- Shoulder replacements have been added to the procedures list in the Orthopedics & Spine specialty ratings for 2026, due not only to their improved safety and efficiency but also their recent addition to CMS’ list of ASC covered procedures.
- An updated shrinkage method was applied to the observed-to-expected ratios that define each outcome in order to maximize reliability. “This update adjusts outlier results by looking at a surgery center's total number of procedures performed. As a result, lower volume ASCs are less likely to receive extreme scores for outcomes that may be driven by chance instead of true performance.”
Beginning today (Feb. 19), ASC leaders can review the currently embargoed results for their facility or facilities and the embargoed methodology report for the 2026 ratings by logging into the free U.S. News Healthcare Dashboard. (If you don’t have an account, request one here.) Additionally, users of the U.S. News Hospital Data Insights platform can analyze and compare ASC performance against national benchmarks or custom peer groups.
