Earlier this month the Malo Health Clinic and Wellness Center in Rutherford, N.J., announced it would open a four-operating room surgery center, The Malo Clinic Center for Ambulatory Surgery. The 11,000-square-foot ASC includes onsite X-ray, lab, fluoroscopy technology and compounding pharmacy. Specialties include orthopedics, spine surgery, interventional pain management, podiatry, urology, gynecology, otolaryngology, bariatric surgery, cosmetic surgery and oral and maxillofacial surgery.
Joseph Testani, chief administrative officer at Malo Clinic ASC, discusses the new surgery center and his plan for success in the future.
Q: Why did Malo Clinic decide to construct an ASC?
Joseph Testani: Our approach was to be able to facilitate every aspect of care, from patient consults to surgical procedures all in one state-of-the-art center. As a part of our integrated healthcare delivery system, it made strategic sense to complement our excellent surgical talent with a state-of-the-art ASC that benefits both our patients and doctors. All located in a comfortable environment allowing patients to be seen pre-operatively and post operatively.
Q: What challenges did you face during the process?
JT: The undertaking of the massive construction project of a four room operating center coupled with an ever changing and uncertain healthcare economic environment, both for facilities and professionals, presented a unique challenge for the ASC to maintain high quality patient care with smaller margins while functioning in an 85 percent in-network center.
Physician recruiting also played an essential role in the construction of this ASC. Our goal was to have the highest caliber physicians as part of this center. We invested a lot of time in deciding which physicians we wanted to approach to be a part of this center.
Q: What benefits do you expect from constructing the ASC?
JT: We pride ourselves in offering a one stop shop for both patients and doctors in a modern healing environment that focuses on the patient as a whole. This serves to only enhance the ease and growth for our patients and doctors by having multispecialty talents that we have assembled in a complementary and multi-disciplinary healthcare environment.
Q: How does this business model position the ASC for success in the future?
JT: Wellness Programs allow for our patients to recover in an environment that primarily focuses on wellness. The success of the healthcare delivery system of the future must bring all medical and ancillary modalities to the patient while providing high-quality care, in partnership with payors to keep costs down, limit administrative overhead, and educate the patients on lifestyle modification in one complete medical environment.
Q: What is your strategic plan to meet the challenges in healthcare over the next few years and continue to prosper?
JT: We have attracted the most diverse and well-qualified professionals to our center while focusing on those procedures that are rapidly moving from an inpatient to an outpatient environment. In order, to sustain our programs we will be partnering with insurance companies to provide all levels of care to include pediatric dentistry and wellness.
Recognizing that many ASCs have lived in the out-of-network world, we believe that it's not a sustainable business model for the future of care. So we have coupled a surgical model with primary care, cardiology, complementary medicine, dentistry, and ancillary services in one location delivered by a cohesive medical record. Promoting preventative care and the integration of all services in a collaborative relationship with the payors and community will allows us to form a sustained business model to meet the challenges that face healthcare in the future.
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Joseph Testani, chief administrative officer at Malo Clinic ASC, discusses the new surgery center and his plan for success in the future.
Q: Why did Malo Clinic decide to construct an ASC?
Joseph Testani: Our approach was to be able to facilitate every aspect of care, from patient consults to surgical procedures all in one state-of-the-art center. As a part of our integrated healthcare delivery system, it made strategic sense to complement our excellent surgical talent with a state-of-the-art ASC that benefits both our patients and doctors. All located in a comfortable environment allowing patients to be seen pre-operatively and post operatively.
Q: What challenges did you face during the process?
JT: The undertaking of the massive construction project of a four room operating center coupled with an ever changing and uncertain healthcare economic environment, both for facilities and professionals, presented a unique challenge for the ASC to maintain high quality patient care with smaller margins while functioning in an 85 percent in-network center.
Physician recruiting also played an essential role in the construction of this ASC. Our goal was to have the highest caliber physicians as part of this center. We invested a lot of time in deciding which physicians we wanted to approach to be a part of this center.
Q: What benefits do you expect from constructing the ASC?
JT: We pride ourselves in offering a one stop shop for both patients and doctors in a modern healing environment that focuses on the patient as a whole. This serves to only enhance the ease and growth for our patients and doctors by having multispecialty talents that we have assembled in a complementary and multi-disciplinary healthcare environment.
Q: How does this business model position the ASC for success in the future?
JT: Wellness Programs allow for our patients to recover in an environment that primarily focuses on wellness. The success of the healthcare delivery system of the future must bring all medical and ancillary modalities to the patient while providing high-quality care, in partnership with payors to keep costs down, limit administrative overhead, and educate the patients on lifestyle modification in one complete medical environment.
Q: What is your strategic plan to meet the challenges in healthcare over the next few years and continue to prosper?
JT: We have attracted the most diverse and well-qualified professionals to our center while focusing on those procedures that are rapidly moving from an inpatient to an outpatient environment. In order, to sustain our programs we will be partnering with insurance companies to provide all levels of care to include pediatric dentistry and wellness.
Recognizing that many ASCs have lived in the out-of-network world, we believe that it's not a sustainable business model for the future of care. So we have coupled a surgical model with primary care, cardiology, complementary medicine, dentistry, and ancillary services in one location delivered by a cohesive medical record. Promoting preventative care and the integration of all services in a collaborative relationship with the payors and community will allows us to form a sustained business model to meet the challenges that face healthcare in the future.
More Articles on Surgery Centers:
10 Revenue Cycle Mistakes Surgery Centers Make
10 Tactics for Surgery Center Administrators to Communicate Better With Surgeons
24 Statistics on Surgery Center case Volume