Administrator Parth Zaveri and Clinical Manager Susan Rahn of the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis, which has expanded to two centers in the past five years, share three of the facility's best practices to keep costs low.
1. Maintain staffing expenses. As one of the more easily controlled costs in operating an ASC, closely monitoring staffing expenses is critical in keeping costs low. Work schedules at the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis are managed in an efficient manner to make sure physicians, nurses and technicians alike are only at the facility at the times they are needed. This includes sending staff home after procedures are done for the day, controlling when exactly staff members are scheduled to work and having the right associates there for the right tasks.
"ASCs have more flexibility with hours, so you don't want to pay staff when patients aren't here," Ms. Rahn says. "Part of the way to contain cost is having the correct [staff member] there at the correct times. You want registered nurses there for [scheduled procedures registered nurses can do] or utilize technicians for other procedures such as scope reprocessing and data entry."
2. Maintain supply costs. Another way to reduce costs is to find better pricing for materials and bundle supplies to avoid ordering more than is necessary. You also want to make sure unnecessary materials are not ordered, says Ms. Rahn.
"We're ordering things on a daily bases and making sure the stock is rotated and checked for expiration dates," she says. "There's also a lot of different gadgets and equipment for endoscopy centers, but if physicians don't use them, you don't want to buy it."
3. Set goals for the ASC. Organizations like MGMA set national benchmarks for staffing expenses, which the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis uses as a guideline to keep costs low and profits up.
"We set goals for our centers as far as where we want our staffing expenses to be on a daily, weekly and monthly basis," Mr. Zaveri says. "We measure ourselves against those goals so we don't exceed staffing budgets."
Learn more about the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis.
1. Maintain staffing expenses. As one of the more easily controlled costs in operating an ASC, closely monitoring staffing expenses is critical in keeping costs low. Work schedules at the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis are managed in an efficient manner to make sure physicians, nurses and technicians alike are only at the facility at the times they are needed. This includes sending staff home after procedures are done for the day, controlling when exactly staff members are scheduled to work and having the right associates there for the right tasks.
"ASCs have more flexibility with hours, so you don't want to pay staff when patients aren't here," Ms. Rahn says. "Part of the way to contain cost is having the correct [staff member] there at the correct times. You want registered nurses there for [scheduled procedures registered nurses can do] or utilize technicians for other procedures such as scope reprocessing and data entry."
2. Maintain supply costs. Another way to reduce costs is to find better pricing for materials and bundle supplies to avoid ordering more than is necessary. You also want to make sure unnecessary materials are not ordered, says Ms. Rahn.
"We're ordering things on a daily bases and making sure the stock is rotated and checked for expiration dates," she says. "There's also a lot of different gadgets and equipment for endoscopy centers, but if physicians don't use them, you don't want to buy it."
3. Set goals for the ASC. Organizations like MGMA set national benchmarks for staffing expenses, which the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis uses as a guideline to keep costs low and profits up.
"We set goals for our centers as far as where we want our staffing expenses to be on a daily, weekly and monthly basis," Mr. Zaveri says. "We measure ourselves against those goals so we don't exceed staffing budgets."
Learn more about the Endoscopy Center of St. Louis.