Nearly every hospital and health system leader says having an ASC helps recruit surgeons, and a growing share say recruits expect one.
Ninety-seven percent of respondents to the 7th Hospital Leadership ASC Survey from Avanza + MedHQ, conducted with HealthLeaders Media, said having a surgery center helps with surgeon recruitment. That includes 14% who called it a requirement for most recruits. In the survey’s 2025 edition, 93% said having an ASC mattered for recruiting surgeons.
Recruitment is also climbing as a reason to invest. Thirty-four percent of respondents named recruiting surgeons as a reason they own or affiliate with ASCs. The report said that motive, historically one of the lower-ranked, has moved up notably.
Equity is part of the pitch. Respondents reported offering ASC equity to employed physicians, and the report said equity is increasingly being used to recruit both employed and independent physicians into surgery center projects. How a hospital engages its surgeons is becoming as much a recruitment tool as the facility itself, according to the report.
The competition for surgeons is tightening. Thirty-seven percent of ASC leaders expect physician recruitment and retention to be a top operational challenge in 2026, according to VMG Health figures cited in an October white paper from Medicus Healthcare Solutions. The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis projects 2027 shortfalls of 2,370 general surgeons and 2,090 orthopedic surgeons, per Medicus.
Many employed surgeons are under contracts that bar them from taking cases elsewhere.
“Now many surgeons are contractually obligated — no case leakage allowed,” said Tom Valentine, president of Wellbridge Surgical.
Ownership has a cost for younger surgeons.
“There’s usually a very significant buy-in required for younger physicians,” Shobhit Minhas, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Geneva, Ill.-based Fox Valley Orthopedics, told Becker’s in December.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
