How a New York-based ASC is preparing for outcomes based reimbursement

Administrator of Amherst, N.Y.-based ASC of WNY JoAnn Vecchio reveals how her surgery center aims to grow within the changing healthcare landscape.

Ms. Vecchio will speak at the Becker's ASC 25th Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, October 18-20, 2018 in Chicago. Click here to learn more and register.

Question: What do you see your center doing over the next three to five years to promote strength and sustainable growth?

JoAnn Vecchio: Our ASC is working very hard with payers and surgeons to promote positive patient satisfaction and continued positive outcomes that continue to promote our centers strengths. As payers move to outcomes based reimbursement, we want to be sure we have the groundwork completed to ensure a smooth transition. Incorporating physician satisfaction is a big part of our future plans.

Knowing that our surgeons are our best recruitment tool, we want to ensure we are meeting or exceeding their needs as well as providing an environment in which they are truly satisfied. Periodic specialty meetings are key to this satisfaction. With the changing landscape in physician recruitment and increasing competition from inter health system referrals, it becomes so much more important for a freestanding ASC to be able to stand out among the rest. Being able to promote a high satisfaction rating from not only patients but from surgeons as well can reinforce a center's strength.

In regards to growth, I think it's very important to review current procedure lists and see where our center has the ability to add cases with the current resources we have. Can the same packs be used in different specialties or different procedure? Do any of our current providers have partners that currently don’t use our center that can be credentialed and bring additional volume or a new specialty easily to the center? Is there a procedure within a certain specialty that can be performed at our center versus the office or another center?

These are all questions our center asks on a quarterly basis. Again, growth trends are sometimes derived from current providers, when you are able to have an effective dialog with your current partners as well as potential partners you are sometimes able to capture something you may not have realized was right in front of you. I am hoping our center is able to capitalize on new trends in my region in the total joint arena as well as new trends in ophthalmology.

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