Jim Freund, senior vice president of GENASCIS, discusses how ambulatory surgery centers can position themselves for success in 2012.
Q: How should ASC administrators prepare for success in 2012?
Jim Freund: Use ASC-specific reporting, data analytics tools and benchmarking data to more effectively manage your center. These will enable you to gather and analyze data for the purpose of making the best possible decisions for your ASC. For example, these tools can help you to improve case costs, identify negative trends in reimbursement and profitability, negotiate better contracts, optimize inventory levels and pricing, maximize OR utilization, identify client risks and trends, and much more. They will enable you to forecast future center performance and easily prepare board reports. Most importantly these tools will enable you to make informed and timely decisions that will positively impact your surgery center and give you a competitive advantage in today's highly challenging healthcare environment.
Q: What is the most important thing legislators can do right now for the ASC industry?
JF: Education is the key — both taxpayers and legislators need to understand that our industry provides an exceptionally high quality of care, that almost any type of outpatient surgery can be performed in this setting and that the costs are significantly less for the same procedure, all of which positively impact our delivery of healthcare.
Q: What can ASC administrators do to make the most significant positive impact on their bottom line over the next year?
JF: ASC administrators should look at a couple of areas of their business in detail. The first would be at case costing, not only what it costs to perform a specific procedure but also look at how each surgeon is performing and then tie this back to your reimbursement to determine profitability by procedure, physician and payor. The second is to understand how well you business office is performing, evaluate your coding, billing and collections functions in-depth and determine what changes you can make to improve financial performance. By taking on these two tasks you will get a much better understanding of your ASC's business.
Related Articles on GENASCIS:
Surgery Center Survival: 15 Critical Questions to Ensure Effective Adaption to Industry Changes
Reporting Perioperative Nerve Blocks
The Importance of Clinical Documentation for ICD-10
Q: How should ASC administrators prepare for success in 2012?
Jim Freund: Use ASC-specific reporting, data analytics tools and benchmarking data to more effectively manage your center. These will enable you to gather and analyze data for the purpose of making the best possible decisions for your ASC. For example, these tools can help you to improve case costs, identify negative trends in reimbursement and profitability, negotiate better contracts, optimize inventory levels and pricing, maximize OR utilization, identify client risks and trends, and much more. They will enable you to forecast future center performance and easily prepare board reports. Most importantly these tools will enable you to make informed and timely decisions that will positively impact your surgery center and give you a competitive advantage in today's highly challenging healthcare environment.
Q: What is the most important thing legislators can do right now for the ASC industry?
JF: Education is the key — both taxpayers and legislators need to understand that our industry provides an exceptionally high quality of care, that almost any type of outpatient surgery can be performed in this setting and that the costs are significantly less for the same procedure, all of which positively impact our delivery of healthcare.
Q: What can ASC administrators do to make the most significant positive impact on their bottom line over the next year?
JF: ASC administrators should look at a couple of areas of their business in detail. The first would be at case costing, not only what it costs to perform a specific procedure but also look at how each surgeon is performing and then tie this back to your reimbursement to determine profitability by procedure, physician and payor. The second is to understand how well you business office is performing, evaluate your coding, billing and collections functions in-depth and determine what changes you can make to improve financial performance. By taking on these two tasks you will get a much better understanding of your ASC's business.
Related Articles on GENASCIS:
Surgery Center Survival: 15 Critical Questions to Ensure Effective Adaption to Industry Changes
Reporting Perioperative Nerve Blocks
The Importance of Clinical Documentation for ICD-10