Construction could begin as soon as the end of April on Colchester, Vt.-based Green Mountain Surgery Center, the VTDigger reports.
Here's what you should know.
1. GMSC will be the second independent surgery center in state. Center administrators went through a tumultuous planning and permitting process lasting several years to get to this point.
2. The center will be 12,879 square feet. It'll include two operating rooms, four procedure rooms and 14 preoperative and postoperative recovery beds.
3. The center's physicians will specialize in gastroenterology, pain management, obstetrics, orthopedics and general surgery.
4. The surgery center must meet a series of contingencies as it is developed. Among those are the creation of a website offering price transparency and center information. The center also has to earn CMS certification.
5. Center Administrator Amy Cooper expects construction to take approximately nine months, with a few additional months for certification and accreditation.
6. The center was at the middle of a statewide debate on licensing and regulation, that VTDigger reports began to recently resurface. Several competing hospitals lobbied heavily against the center, in an effort to retain profits. Hospital administrators argued the independent center could raise the overall cost of healthcare. Surgery center advocates disputed that claim.