The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it increased costs for labor and supplies, but ASCs were already dealing with other factors that increased their costs.
Colleen Ramirez, RN, chief administration officer of the Bone and Joint Surgery Center of Novi (Mich.), joined "Becker's ASC Review Podcast" to talk about the outlook for ASCs with insurance reimbursements, prior authorizations and more.
Note: This is an edited excerpt. Listen to the full podcast episode here.
Question: What are you most excited about, and what makes you nervous?
Colleen Ramirez: I'm most excited to treat the growing population of patients who will seek care at an ASC. We are so proud to provide safe, efficient healthcare in an ASC environment, and we love being the primary reason for the reduction of cost to the healthcare market.
What am I nervous about? I think all of us are nervous that there's going to be worsening insurance reimbursements. We're nervous about the continued burden [of prior authorizations]. There's a lot of prior authorizations, and that increases a lot of the administrative hurdles we have to jump through, which then can increase our labor costs. Has the pandemic pricing for not just labor but also supplies, has it created a new normal?
We're hoping that even the Medicaid recipients who are disenrolled can be connected with other potential healthcare coverage as well, like [the Affordable Care Act]. Moving forward, the key question is how to build and what has been a success, and not lose ground. We have been thinking all about the potential consequences of winding down the pandemic emergency as well.