From declining reimbursements to rising costs, many ASCs are facing persistent economic pressures, requiring many centers to rework efficiency strategies.
Andrew Weiss, administrator of Summit Surgical Center in Voorhees, N.J., joined Becker’s to discuss how compressing “OR schedules to avoid running half-empty rooms” is key to building operational resilience.
At the heart of Summit Surgical’s approach is data — and more specifically, its electronic medical record system. For Summit, Epic “provides very good tools for our utilization,” Mr. Weiss told Becker’s.
“Even though you have upfront costs for implementation and hardware, the [return on investment] can be impressive, particularly in the revenue cycle,” he said.
By working with their EMR vendor, the team regularly pulls utilization reports to identify trends and inefficiencies in case times across providers. The more accurate the data, the more surgical leaders can tailor workflows to maximize OR throughput.
“Some providers will, for the same case, take half an hour, while others will take 40 minutes,” he said. “That’s huge. If you can knock off minutes on your case or your room turnover time, that means you can add extra cases in. Don’t underestimate minutes. Minutes are very valuable in an OR.”
Drawing on this type of data analytics is critical for ASCs to maintain margins, Mr. Weiss said, particularly as reimbursements decline and ASCs are forced to adapt.
“What we get for a colonoscopy in 2025 is less than what we got from Medicare in 2004,” he said. “But we make do with less. That’s what we’ve always been able to do.”
