Shannon Yarrow, senior vice president of managed care at Brentwood, Tenn.-based Surgery Partners, joined "Becker's ASC Review Podcast" to talk about ASCs capitalizing on value-based payment programs.
Note: This is an edited excerpt. Listen to the full podcast episode here.
Question: How could surgery centers win in value-based programs, particularly for service lines like total joints that are in such high demand, when there's lots of money to be saved by moving into surgery centers?
Shannon Yarrow: What we're seeing is that if we can engage with accountable care organizations and show them that we can provide the high-quality, lower-cost setting, that is a true incentive. They are at risk for a certain budget of dollars, and if they spend less than the budget, then they get to share in the savings, usually with the health plan. So we can be a really good cost-effective alternative, especially in those high-cost areas like total joints or spine procedures, where the differential between the cost at a hospital and the cost at an ASC can be pretty significant.
As ASCs, we want to engage with those types of organizations that are taking risk in terms of bundled payments. We've seen some growth in this space. ... We're starting to see a lot of employer interest for the self-funded payers in the bundled payment arrangement. And that does put a little bit of risk on ASCs and physicians to make sure that they are giving high-quality care and selecting the appropriate patients for those bundles. But I do think that also leads to opportunities and more growth for volume opportunities, and so saving the health system money.