Hiring a materials manager, embracing standardization and consolidating supplies is key to building a cost containment culture at ASCs.
At an Oct. 25 presentation at the Becker's ASC Review 26th Annual Meeting in Chicago, four expert panelists from the ASC industry discussed the strategies they've used to control material costs in their operating rooms.
The panelists included Kenny Bozorgi, MD, owner and operating room director of Magna Surgical Center; Joyce White, facility administrator of Cypress Surgery Center of Wichita (Kan.); Helene Levenson, RN, BSN, senior consultant of clinical operations for Cardinal Health; and Matt Carroll, senior director of U.S. market access and custom analytics for Intuitive Surgical.
At the center of a successful cost containment culture is a materials manager, Ms. Levenson said. "The materials manager role has grown a lot over the last decade," Ms. Levenson said. "The materials manager has gotten more responsibility, and the role will continue to grow."
Going forward, technology will also have a major role in the materials manager's job description. Ms. Levenson said that she's seen materials managers that use hand-scanners for tracking inventory and more electronic preference cards that capture costs for procedures. ASCs will need to hire materials managers that have certain qualities if they are to be successful. If an ASC is having trouble finding a person with the necessary skills, they can hire from within.
"Materials managers need quantitative analysis skills, and the ability to go above and beyond clinical [operations]," Dr. Bozorgi said. "A materials manager needs to go beyond being a relationship manager with the vendor. Try to build the [role] from within and then give additional training."
One of the key cost containment areas for materials managers to focus on is purchasing surgical equipment, like robotics.
"In the ASC setting, we're balancing both clinical and financial operations," Mr. Carroll said. "Both medical innovations and robotics lean heavily on the cost curve, as we have to evaluate what the contribution is going to be, as well as the trade-off and surgical volume."
Taking critical steps during the decision-making process is key to ensuring expensive medical equipment purchases pay off, Dr. Bozorgi said.
"Step one is to understand the clinical operations, getting as much information as possible and looking well outside the ASC market to forecast what the trajectory of that piece of equipment is going to be over time," he said. "Until we get buy-in from the whole team, it's hard to make a decision. At the end of the day, if it helps patients, makes things more efficient and we get reimbursed reasonably, that's something we want to pursue."
Outside of smart decision making for technology and surgical equipment, materials managers can adopt creative solutions to contain costs.
"We've made case costing transparent by presenting reports with surgeons' procedure costs to shareholder meeting," Ms. White said. "Physicians started collaborating to lower costs. Another thing we did was put a 'grocery list' in the OR of what the high-dollar items are, so if a physician wants it in the room but they don't want it opened for the case, nurses can tell them what items are going to cost as they do their procedure."