1. Benchmark your ASC’s performance. By internally benchmarking various clinical and financial aspects, orthopedic-driven ASCs can more effectively assess how to improve areas of weakness and determine how the facility performs compared to national or state-level data. Various organizations regularly publish benchmarking data on a wide array of indicators, including operating expense and case volume.
2. Encourage frequent communication between the ASC and physician offices. Another key to improving the efficiency of orthopedic cases is opening and encouraging frequent communication between ASC front-office staff and physician offices. Frequent communication helps ensure that the ASC schedules cases properly, obtains accurate and complete patient information and understands physicians’ preferences. For example, if a physician is performing a meniscus repair, his or her office staff should automatically communicate information about the instrumentation the ASC so that there is no missing instrumentation during the surgery, says Timothy Kremchek, MD, medical director at Beacon Orthopedics and Sports Medicine and a physician-owner of the clinic’s surgery center.
“Develop a relationship between the people in your office and those at the ASC so that information can easily go back and forth, and there are no lapses in communication,” says Dr. Kremchek.
3. Contract directly with employers and businesses. The healthcare climate is stiff with competition, so ASCs should do everything in their power to maintain the upper hand in the ASC market. John Wipfler, CEO of OA Surgery Center in Portland, Maine, says the surgery center is currently working with various employers in his community on direct contracting for orthopedic needs.
“We are having conversations with employers to help them address their orthopedic needs, including both workers’ compensation and employees covered by routine healthcare, to help them avoid more expensive costs with healthcare payors,” Mr. Wipfler says.
Working directly with employers and businesses ensures a steady stream of volume that is not diluted by cases lost to competitors.
4. Elect staff members to monitor finances, particularly pre-collection and billing functions. The staff members who monitor the revenue cycle have the primary role of meeting with patients before surgery to pre-collect copays, deductibles and co-insurance amounts as well as working out payment plans as needed, says Ann Margaret McCraw, CEO of Midlands Orthopaedics Surgery Center in Columbia, S.C. Delegating specific responsibilities, such as pre-procedural collections, to staff members helps ASCs collect in a more efficient manner.
“Our financial account specialists collect both for our professional practice and ASC, so our patients don’t have to make separates trips for different bills,” she says. “These staff members are trained to have those sensitive conversations with our patients and know how to interpret statements, EOBs and explain deductibles. So it helps our ASC and practice because the payments from one patient are all funneled to a specialist, and it’s nice for our patients because it alleviates confusion on their part as they navigates bills from both entities.”
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