Ambulatory Surgery Centers

A mbulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) can reduce costs for Payors by a whopping 59 percent by moving hospital outpatients to ASC setting.

Ambulatory surgery centers or Hospital beyond the walls can create huge value for outpatient healthcare services. These ASCs have especially gained significance over the past year due to the global pandemic—paving way for extended healthcare services outside the hospital walls. The global ASC market size reached to over $75 billion in 2020 and is prognosticated to grow at a CAGR of 6.1 percent from 2021 to 2027, according to the Global Market Insights. From diagnostics to surgeries and preventive healthcare services, ASCs can help care providers optimize value and accelerate health outcomes, while driving down healthcare costs. Here’s how...

How Ambulatory Surgery Centers Mitigate Costs

Ambulatory surgery Centers can offer care services for multiple specialties including orthopedics, obstetrics and gynecology, anesthesia and pain management amongst the other specialties of care.

ASCs reduce the cost of outpatient surgery by a staggering $38 billion every year in the U.S. This is made possible by offering a lower cost site of care compared to the hospital outpatient setting. ASCs specialize on certain healthcare procedures and require a smaller physical space to operate. ASCs also can create flexible schedules for the staff pertaining to the caseloads, and more often have a shortened workweek. They can also efficiently schedule multiple cases in a row to minimize idle downtime between surgeries and procedures.

Consider that Outpatient care services cost in 2019 was over 145 times more than the same procedure that could have possibly been conducted in an Ambulatory Surgery setting. The cost of Outpatient procedures on an average would be about $7800 at a hospital, whereas the same procedure would cost only about $3170 in an ASC. This creates a huge opportunity to reduce cost for payors and healthcare consumers by at least about $700 for procedures that could be shifted to an Ambulatory Surgical setting. However, there are some challenges that the situation poses.

For patients with complex health concerns including renal disease, chronic conditions and other complications, it is recommended that they undergo the procedure in a hospital set up than to choose an alternative environment like Ambulatory Surgery Center. Insurance reports indicate that about ten percent of the total surgical procedures were complex and needed a hospital care for optimum health outcomes. There are also other challenges like the unavailability of an Ambulatory Surgery Center in the proximity, a reason why many healthcare consumers are unable to avail the option to go for this cost-effective option of a surgery. Over 35% of patients have been unable to take advantage of an ASC due this reason.

While ASCs can help patients from preventing huge out-of-pocket expenses, research shows that Ambulatory Surgery Center care could save a whopping $2 billion a year for private payors and a staggering $1 billion for public payors like Medicare. What’s more, ASC care patients are also reported to get less infected—with lower readmission rates within 30 days.

Bottom line

With growing healthcare costs and hospital capacity gaps, it is increasingly essential that Healthcare providers look for effective alternative solutions to provide high-quality care at an affordable pricing. Cost efficiencies in care services can benefit the consumers and payors— setting the stage for effective population health management and value-based care respectively. Payors can choose a combination of strategies to accelerate value-based care, while significantly mitigating costs.

SolvEdge provides unique patient engagement solutions that can be seamlessly integrated into an ASC care management platform for a frictionless patient-physician experience. To learn more about how SolvEdge’s comprehensive care coordination platform can drive value to your ASC care program, Give us a shout!