AmSurg President Jeff Snodgrass joined Becker’s to discuss the company’s future in broadening its service lines, deepening health system partnerships and reinforcing its support for independent physicians.
With an acquisition by Ascension on the horizon, AmSurg is poised to accelerate its growth in the evolving ASC landscape.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited lightly for clarity and length.
Question: AmSurg is now one of the nation’s largest ASC operators. How would you describe your leadership approach in guiding its network?
Jeff Snodgrass: Over the past few years, AmSurg has focused on diversifying our portfolio mix, broadening service lines, expanding our health system partnerships, reinforcing our commitment to independent physician practices and enhancing our management company value proposition to ensure we optimize surgery center performance for patients, partners and payers.
Most importantly, our people are an essential component of our value proposition. We have invested heavily in our team and culture and describe our organization as very mission focused on our centers and patients. We fully expect the Ascension acquisition will only advance and accelerate these objectives.
Q: Looking ahead, how do you expect the ASC model to evolve over the next decade, and what role do you see AmSurg playing in that transformation?
JS: The ASC sector has broadened beyond independent and management company-partnered centers to include physician practice management companies and health system-managed centers. We expect this trend will continue. Given the success of ASCs and their importance to patient care, I expect to see more integrated provider care networks that include surgery centers.
The role of ASCs will continue to expand as new service lines and procedures within existing service lines are added to the outpatient list. Payers will develop innovative approaches and partnerships to ensure the appropriate site of care is utilized for each patient. AmSurg’s strategy is aligned with this future in mind, and the pending acquisition will help drive our success in this future.
Q: As consolidation accelerates across the ASC landscape, how is AmSurg balancing the benefits of scale with the need to maintain agility and local physician engagement at the center level?
JS: Our operating model is built on a few key tenets:
- Utilize the enterprise-wide or scaled capabilities as resources in our tool kit and bring them to bear in each geography.
- That each geography is unique. Factors impacting each geography include the maturity of the outpatient network, the scope or scale of physician practices, and of course, health systems and their presence, strategy and operating model.
- Understanding these dynamics at the local level helps us utilize our national scale while tailoring our approach to the applicable geography and maximizing our agility. This approach is foundational to how we are organized, how we operate and will continue post-acquisition.
