ASC News

Here are the five most popular ASC stories for the week of Aug. 17 to Aug. 23:

Life expectancy is declining in high-income counties across the world because of the opioid epidemic and a worsening flu season, according to studies published in BMJ, MDLinx reports.

A study published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research examined the wage gap between executives, physicians and nonclinical workers.

There are a multitude of ways health systems can use technology to make patients more comfortable and improve their overall experience, according to Forbes.

CMS proposed changing the definition of surgery to account for "surgery-like" procedures in the 2019 proposed payment rule for ASCs and hospital outpatient departments, which could add cardiac catheterization procedures to the ASC covered list.

Operating a rural ASC can be a challenge — limited resources for patient access, staffing and physician recruitment require administrators to strategize to ensure their ASC is successful, according to Pinnacle III, an ASC management company.

Here are four legislative issues impacting ASCs:

Four ASC administrators discuss how they are improving the patient experience.

Independent ASCs who don't adopt EHRs risk falling behind the competition, according to Eye Care Leaders, a practice management system for ophthalmology-centered ASCs.

As ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) become increasingly attractive as a high quality, lower cost site of care for appropriate patients, cardiovascular procedures may be the next wave of higher acuity cases moving from hospital operating rooms to free-standing centers.