Joseph Zasa is co-founder and managing partner of ASD Management.
Q: Our ambulatory surgery center has an unused operating room. What should we do to determine if we should be using it?
Joseph Zasa: The first thing to do is to try to schedule as vertically as you possibly can so you don't open up an OR unless it is absolutely required. By vertically, we mean starting at 7:00 a.m. and trying to go to 2:00-3:00 p.m. instead of spreading out the cases all in the morning and having downtime during the day. Opening the extra OR requires you to staff it and that usually requires an OR nurse and an OR tech, so you're talking probably close to $125,000 a year in staffing costs and benefits. The cost to equip an OR is $200,000 and could be more depending on the physicians.
The best approach is to work with your surgeons and their offices to operate tighter during the day, trying to go more vertical than horizontal. The way to do that is to have proper release times on block time and work with the physicians — show them the economic impact and how opening the OR is probably not in their financial interest.
Scheduling more efficiently is the defensive side. The offensive side is inserting new specialties and recruiting new physicians to justify the open operating room's use. It's fine to have one shelled out for future growth, but you don't want to start using it until you're scheduling efficiently and can financially justify opening it.
Learn more about ASD Management. Contact Joe Zasa (joezasa@asdmanagement.com) at (214) 369-2996.
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