Anesthesia providers have seen a growth in opportunities as procedures increasingly migrate to the outpatient setting, according to a June 5 blog post from Anesthesia Business Consultants.
The migration has also opened a new set of logistic, financial and strategic challenges for anesthesia providers as they have to adapt from a practice model that formerly served a single hospital facility to more outpatient settings.
The biggest challenge, according to the post, is being able to recruit and retain staff that can meet the expectations of all settings. As anesthesia practices expand to non-hospital venues, scheduling challenges increase.
Additionally, it is often rare that ASCs can provide financial support outside of the revenue generated from surgical cases. This isn't a problem if the center is busy and has a favorable payer mix, but often operating room utilization can be "variable and unpredictable."
Anesthesia practices must track the yield per location day to monitor ongoing profitability.