Steve Hockert, chief development officer at Southlake, Texas-based Solara, has been warning the ASC industry for years that outcomes data would become the great differentiator, and now, with CMS mandating patient experience reporting and public scorecards going live in 2026, that moment has arrived.
Mr. Hockert has already been building data infrastructure into every new center from the ground up. He joined Becker’s to discuss how operators can no longer treat transparency as a compliance checkbox.
Question: Payers are increasingly using outcomes data as leverage in contract negotiations. Are you seeing that pressure firsthand? How are Solara’s centers preparing for a world where data transparency is effectively a cost of entry?
Steve Hockert: Absolutely. I’ve been saying for a few years now, going back to when I first spoke with Becker’s about cardiovascular ASCs, that outcomes data would become the differentiator. That’s proving true across the industry. The conversation isn’t just about cost anymore. Payers, referring physicians and patients are all looking at complication rates, readmissions, infection rates and satisfaction scores, and increasingly using that data as a condition of inclusion, referral or choice. That shift has accelerated meaningfully on the regulatory side as well. CMS made the OAS CAHPS patient experience survey a mandatory measure under the ASCQR Program beginning January 2025, and public reporting of that data through the Provider Data Catalog and Medicare Care Compare website begins in 2026. CMS has also finalized a patient-reported outcome measure for total hip and knee replacements, with voluntary reporting underway now and mandatory reporting beginning for procedures performed in 2028. For the first time, ASCs have a public, standardized scorecard, and that scorecard is going to drive payer, physician and patient decisions in a way the industry hasn’t had to navigate before.
From a development standpoint, this shapes how we think about every new center we build or acquire. We’re investing in data infrastructure on the front end so our centers are positioned to report outcomes proactively rather than reactively. Historically, ASCs operated with lighter reporting requirements than hospitals, and some viewed that as a competitive advantage. With CMS now requiring standardized patient experience data and outcomes measures, and with that data becoming publicly visible alongside competitors and hospital outpatient departments, that era is ending. The operators who treat transparency as table stakes rather than a compliance burden will have a meaningful edge in partnerships, physician recruitment, patient trust and long-term enterprise value. We’d rather build that muscle now than retrofit it later.
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