For-profit ASCs want to offer services with both high growth potential and high net revenue per case — and urology fits the bill, according to Brad Lerner, MD, medical director of Summit ASC, a group of 16 single-specialty urology ASCs throughout Maryland.
ASC Focus interviewed Dr. Lerner about the "untapped potential" of urology in ASCs.
Three takeaways:
1. Urology accounted for just 3 percent of single-specialty ASCs, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's March 2019 report to Congress. The report also indicated that urology is offered in a small percentage of multispecialty ASCs.
2. Only one urology procedure — cystoscopy — was ranked among the services most frequently offered at ASCs in 2017.
3. Urology cases represent just 6 percent of the total case mix for U.S. ASCs, according to VMG Health's 2017 Multi-Specialty ASC Intellimarker report. These cases also reportedly generated the fourth-highest median net revenue per case for ASC specialties, at about $2,400 per case.
"There is an incredible opportunity for ASCs to be the site that provides the highest level of safe, compassionate, cost-effective outpatient urologic care," Dr. Lerner told ASC Focus. "From a timing standpoint, the stars are aligned for urology ASC services."