Larry Teuber, MD, is the founder and physician executive of Black Hills Surgery Center in Rapid City, S.D., and the chief medical officer and president of Medical Facilities Corporation.
A board-certified neurological surgeon, Dr. Teuber is also the founder and current managing partner of The Spine Center in Rapid City. He provides consultative services concerning the development of surgical facilities and centers of excellence for neurosurgical and spinal care. Dr. Teuber earned his medical degree from the University of South Dakota and completed both his general surgery internship and neurosurgery residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He served for 17 years in the active and reserve army as an aviation and medical officer.
In an interview with Becker's ASC Review, Dr. Teuber said that it is important for a surgery center to define procedure start times to keep the schedule on track, adding that different specialists within the surgery center often have varying interpretation of what start times are. "The fact is, everything depends on the surgeon coming to talk to the patient, sign the extremity, autograph pre-op consent and make sure the patient is ready to go," he said. "There is a huge amount of wasted time if you think of the number of people who are lined up waiting for surgery — pre-op nurses, anesthesiologists, circulators, surgical assistants, postoperative specialists and recovery specialists — all dependent on when the surgeon is present in the morning. The costs on payroll are huge even if the surgeon is 15 minutes late."
A board-certified neurological surgeon, Dr. Teuber is also the founder and current managing partner of The Spine Center in Rapid City. He provides consultative services concerning the development of surgical facilities and centers of excellence for neurosurgical and spinal care. Dr. Teuber earned his medical degree from the University of South Dakota and completed both his general surgery internship and neurosurgery residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He served for 17 years in the active and reserve army as an aviation and medical officer.In an interview with Becker's ASC Review, Dr. Teuber said that it is important for a surgery center to define procedure start times to keep the schedule on track, adding that different specialists within the surgery center often have varying interpretation of what start times are. "The fact is, everything depends on the surgeon coming to talk to the patient, sign the extremity, autograph pre-op consent and make sure the patient is ready to go," he said. "There is a huge amount of wasted time if you think of the number of people who are lined up waiting for surgery — pre-op nurses, anesthesiologists, circulators, surgical assistants, postoperative specialists and recovery specialists — all dependent on when the surgeon is present in the morning. The costs on payroll are huge even if the surgeon is 15 minutes late."