The Ambulatory Surgery Center Association of Illinois is urging the state not to adopt proposed changes from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board that would place further regulations on ambulatory surgery centers seeking to add specialties, but not on hospital outpatient departments. Executive director of the association Mark Mayo sent a letter on behalf of the association to the United States Department of Justice asking for a review on the new proposal, which it believes create an unfair competitive advantage for HOPDs. The update would require ASCs to obtain a certificate-of-need to add a new surgical specialty, but hospitals would not be required to follow the same rules.
"Our Association, which represents the interests of ASCs throughout the State of Illinois, opposes these unilateral proposed CON regulation changes," states the letter. "We believe that imposition of very restrictive CON rules by Illinois on ASCs and the continued practice of unilateral analysis of impact on hospitals, has and will further create an unfair negative and anti-competitive barrier to the entry of new ASCs and to the expansion of existing ASCs to the detriment of the healthcare competition and consumers."
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