CMS’ recent expansion of covered cardiology procedures in ASCs has sparked discussion across the industry about the future of patient access and what innovation may look like in the space.
Anish Amin, MD, an electrophysiologist with Columbus-based OhioHealth Heart & Vascular Physicians and co-founder and chief medical officer of Carlsbad, N.M.-based Current Clinic, told Becker’s that while cardiology’s shift to outpatient has been slow, it is poised to have a multifaceted impact on the industry.
“What that means for the world of electrophysiology, day in day out, is that it broadens access,” he said. “If we think about my work day to day, or any electrophysiologists’ day to day, our legacy facility design and structure has choked lab expansion, procedural area expansion, and that means that we have really been limited in the number of patients that we serve.”
This is compounded by the fact that the awareness of and number of patients suffering from arrhythmia has grown “exponentially’ over the last decade, Dr. Amin added.
According to a 2025 survey cited by the American College of Cardiology, wait times for a general cardiovascular visit went up 26% from 2017 to 2022 due to workforce shortages. Patients in the U.S. wait an average of 32.7 days to see a cardiologist, according to another report from AMN Healthcare.
While technology has developed rapidly to increase efficiency and safety in the specialty, more systemic change is needed to sustainably meet the growing demand, Dr. Amin said.
“While we’re treating more patients from an absolute number, we really have not added additional resources to make that care possible,” he said. “We’ve strained the existing infrastructure. That’s not just the physical infrastructure of the labs, but that’s the human infrastructure of the lab staff, the care team that’s evaluating a patient before any particular intervention. And for most facilities, what we’ve seen is that all of that infrastructure is at a breaking point.”
This is all moving toward a “right sizing” of patient care, Dr. Amin said, as lower-acuity procedures migrate to the outpatient and expansion continues “on the sort of untapped arrhythmia potential that still needs the hospital-based infrastructure to be done safely.”
The shift could have an outsized impact on rural areas. Nearly 50% of all U.S. counties do not have a single practicing cardiologist, most of which are in rural counties where residents are most in need of higher levels of care, according to research published July 2024 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“Our hope is that this is a significant improvement in procedural access for folks who live in rural communities,” Dr. Amin said. “Yes, we’re going to see you know facilities open in metro areas because there are obviously healthcare deserts in metro areas as well. But certainly, cardiovascular care has been quite strained in rural communities, and this represents a way to get much-needed interventional services into those areas, in the best effort as we can and meet patients where they are.”
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.