The ASC is becoming a more viable option for higher acuity spine and pain management procedures, but leaders need to think strategically before rushing to add them to their rosters, Nikhil Shetty, MD, said.
Dr. Shetty, COO of Munster, Ind.-based Midwest Interventional Spine Specialists, spoke about how ASC leaders should approach these decisions.
Note: This conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
Question: As an ASC leader, how are you evaluating whether an ASC is ready to take on high acuity cases?
Dr. Nikhil Shetty: Everybody looks at the reimbursement of an outpatient spinal fusion and wants to start incorporating that into a service line in their own ASC. What is even more important than that is to know what you’re good at. At the ASC that we run in northwest Indiana, we’ve been doing interventional spine and pain procedures for a little over 10 years. We’ve become very proficient as clinicians and nurse practitioners. Our clinical staff in the ASC, the nursing staff, the operating nurse and our pre-op and post-op areas become very in tune with managing and caring for interventional pain patients and the types of procedures that we do.
As we grow our proficiency in that space we try and maximize what we can do while staying within our wheelhouse. I think sometimes ASC leaders get into trouble when they want to incorporate a new service line for something that their staff is not necessarily capable of handling. We’re very well aware of what we are proficient at, and we like to stay within our wheelhouse specifically with interventional pain and maximizing our outcomes. I want to do the best job I can for my interventional pain patients, and the same mindset is disseminated across my staff in our ASC and our office space.
