Regent Surgical Health: 6 trends for ASCs to watch

Westchester, Ill.-based Regent Surgical Health predicted several trends for ASCs in 2018, including growth in value-based care strategies, new payment models and a shift of high acuity cases to the outpatient setting.

Here are six trends Regent identified:

1. Value-based care. As CMS encourages value over volume, hospital systems are looking to optimize their ambulatory care platforms. For example, Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health transitioned about 75 percent of its revenue to value-based care and entered into partnerships with payers.

2. Total joint replacement. TJR procedures are increasingly migrating from hospitals to ASCs despite financial barriers. The value of total hip and knee joint replacements is projected to increase from $1 million to $4 million annually by 2030, and an estimated 45 percent of those procedures will be performed in the outpatient setting by 2025.

3. Bundled payments. Bundled payments are projected to account for 17 percent of all medical payment types in the next five years. Linked to the value-based care transition, bundled payments give ASCs an opportunity to increase patient volume through partnerships with payers and self-insured businesses.

4. Hospital outpatient department conversion. On average, ASCs are paid 59 percent of the HOPD rate for Medicare patients. Still, procedures are shifting to ASCs due to physician preference, patient convenience, lower cost and better outcomes. The industry is increasingly seeing hospital systems and physician groups form joint ventures to convert HOPDs to ASCs.

5. Employed physicians as ASC partners. Health systems are developing ambulatory platforms with ASC joint ventures to aid recruitment and retention. This trend is a deviation from the past, when offering employed physicians ASC ownership was discouraged.

6. Specialty centers. While embracing managed care strategies, health systems are developing interconnected ambulatory platforms with outpatient assets based on market needs. Expect to see health systems continue adding specialty assets such as ASCs, cardiovascular centers, imaging labs and urgent care.

Regent Surgical Health's guide to ASC trends in 2018 can be downloaded here.

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