From financial concerns to joint replacements, two leaders recently joined Becker's to discuss the biggest misconceptions of the ASC industry.
Question: What misconception do people have about the ASC industry?
Editor's note: These responses have been edited lightly for length and clarity.
Paula Autry. CEO of Leadership DNAmics (Grass Lake, Mich.): One misconception that people have about ASCs is that they are just a way for physicians to make money. ASCs have proven over the years that for the right procedures and appropriate patient population, they can provide high-quality and high-value care. While ASCs are often joint ventures between hospital/health systems and physicians, they also have the benefit of addressing capacity concerns in the hospital in a safe environment with high service.
Les Jebson. Regional Administrator at Prisma Health (Greenville, S.C.). One of my professional goals remains in informing and educating colleagues and consumers alike about the value proposition that ASCs provide in the care of patient populations. ASCs are not new.
However, innovation and advancement in procedural-based care — device materials, anesthetics, techniques — are allowing ASCs to be a valuable component of overall integrated care delivery. When I started my career, joint replacements were four- to seven-day hospital stays. The aforementioned advancements have allowed patients to receive a new joint and return home the same day. If their acuity is such, they can still have joint replacement surgery in a hospital and utilize the infrastructure that the hospital setting affords. Thus, the systems are designed around providing the best care in the most appropriate care setting.
Some additional misconceptions I note are that ASCs do not have to adhere to the same standards as their sister hospitals. Congruently, only simple cases can be performed in ASC settings. I think the advancements in heart procedures, orthopedic procedures and ophthalmology demonstrate that higher complexity care can be provided in an ASC setting.