Chris Thomas, CEO of Colorado West Healthcare System in Grand Junction, joined Becker's to discuss how important it is to fight for reimbursements at ASCs and more.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. If you would like to contribute to our next question, please email Paige Haeffele at phaeffele@beckershealthcare.com.
Question: What do ASCs need most right now?
Chris Thomas: Right now, one of our biggest struggles is contracts and payers, and the difficulties of getting paid and getting contracts. We've had lots of discussions with the payers because we own both the hospital and the surgery center. It's like if we can't get reasonable contracts in the surgery center, we'll just do those cases in the hospital. And that's not good for us. That's not good for anybody — not our patients or the system. It's such a drastic difference in reimbursement and trying to get reasonable contracts on the front end was just getting nowhere. Then on the back end, when we do send a bill, the denials and the difficulties in trying to get paid for the services that we provide has become almost unbearable.