For the majority of health organizations, including ASCs, increasing revenues and turning a profit are major goals every year.
While organizations are laser-focused on patient care, ASC administrators and business leaders must also be aware of increasing revenues year over year to keep up with the rising costs of supplies, property and staffing.
Jeremy Riley, CEO of GML Healthcare Consulting, a company that provides consultative services to ASCs for build-outs, accreditations, operations and revenue increases, shared with Becker's the top five factors that he believes will impact an ASC's ability to increase revenue in 2023:
Editor's note: Response has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
1. The ability to tightly manage contractual agreements with payers and produce a competitive charge master that's not significantly more than the operating surgery center down the street. Today, patients are becoming more educated concerning the ability to shop for services.
2. The ability to control expenses in the form of supply and brand utilization, to include overall inventory management and/or inventory on hand. It's critical that administrators establish par levels and form solid customer relationships with vendors. Operating within an ACO will provide bulk purchasing power, which will result in decreased supply costs that ultimately impact the bottom line or net revenue.
3. Hiring strong clinical/clerical teammates. Currently, there's a shortage of healthcare professionals across the board. This includes your entry level positions, such as receptionist or certified nursing assistant, to specialty physicians. Therefore, healthcare companies are competing for the stronger employees. This group of professionals generally base their employment decisions on reputation and/or culture in regards to the organization/company they select to work for. Most importantly, hourly compensation plays a significant role in their decision-making process. Contingent on which generation you're referring to, most experienced healthcare professionals will choose a company that has a strong culture and lower compensation versus the opposite. Hence, finding a positive culture or work environment in today's work environment can be challenging. This is often due to leadership style and the company's desire to drive revenue.
4. Customer satisfaction is a significant factor that will impact the ability to maintain and/or increase revenue in 2023. Customer service is a very easy process and should be at the forefront of any business, most specifically healthcare. However, it's an area that's lacking in many healthcare organizations and services. Because everyone gets so caught up in the day-to-day grind, concentrating on capturing revenue, they forget the most important elements of offering services. Therefore, leadership from an executive perspective will be required to exceed revenue above expectations in 2023.
5. Lastly, data analysis is a key component impacting revenue. Without data analysis, an administrator isn't able to understand not only their market, but how much market share they occupy, available market share, opportunities for same-store growth, ability to manage referral patterns consistently in reference to who is referring, when and why certain referrals decrease, etc. This information isn't only valuable to executive staff, but is a resourceful tool for your marketing team. They should be utilizing this data to determine where their outreach strategies are working.