Many ambulatory surgery centers do not have an efficient process for tracking their supplies and labor for case costing. A study by GENASCIS, a provider of billing, revenue cycle management services and supporting technologies for surgery centers, evaluated the range of variances in surgery duration (cut time) specific to the top orthopedic procedure by volume — CPT 29881 (knee arthroscopy/surgery) — across 344 facilities performing 43,651 of these cases. The study shows there is a significant variance between ASCs for average surgery duration (in minutes) when performing CPT 29881. When looking at data from a single facility, there is significant variance in cost per case based on duration.
For surgery duration, most facilities (209 of 344) reported an average time of 25-35 minutes, with 25 facilities reporting 20 minutes and 41 facilities reporting 40 minutes. But 41 facilities reported an average time of more than 50 minutes.
When examining the variation within a single facility, some providers performed the case in 20 minutes at an average cost per case of $100.83 while other providers performed the case in 40 minutes at $134.62 per case.
Here are four steps GENASCIS recommends for ASCs to follow to track clinical labor and control costs:
1. Track your clinical resources assigned to cases in your information system.
2. Educate your physicians on the time variances for same procedures.
3. Include staff labor costs when negotiating payor contracts and setting fee schedules.
4. Seek out peer facilities, state associations or industry data to establish benchmarks.
Learn more about GENASCIS.
Read more from GENASCIS:
- 4 Steps to Improve Collections Through Contractual Write-Offs
- 6 Steps to Improve Collection of Time of Service Patient Co-Pays
- Denied CPT 64495: Q&A With Stacey Miller of GENASCIS