This is Rosie Talaga with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast.
Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Nirajah
Kakehri, founder and CEO of North Texas Team
Care Surgery Center, to talk about some of
the biggest trends in the ASC industry.
Doctor Kakehri,
it's a pleasure to have you on the
podcast today.
1st, can you please take a moment to
introduce yourself and your work in the industry?
Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me here.
We love Becker's. We love coming every year.
I am one of the founders of North
Texas Team Care Surgery Center. I'm a retired
dentist, actually.
And right now, my job predominantly
is in the financial area. I take care
of the billing section of my company,
oversee all of that, oversee all the coding.
We don't do it in house, but I
over do the all the oversight on that
currently.
Thank you. So our first question today is
the ASC volume across the country is expected
to increase by 16%
by 2032.
With this growth, what are the most pressing
challenges to maintain a positive patient experience?
I think we have to know who our
patients are more than anything.
What is their demographic that they're coming from
and address that correctly?
We also have to address the comorbidities that
a lot of these patients are going to
be having in the future, obesity being number
1.
So we have to make sure that the
patients that we are bringing to the ASC
are in fact appropriate
for the ASC itself.
And
as
the population
growth
goes towards an ASC, we also have to
make sure that we have safety equipment guidelines,
everything that can address the needs of that
particular,
patient in general. So we've seen more and
more procedures
go into the ASC
23 hour stays.
Just make sure you have the life safety
equipment that your staff is trained, that they're
able to concretely
take care of all of the patients that
that that you're bringing there. Know, you wanna
make sure that everybody's up to date, CPR,
ALS, BLS, whatever it is that they need,
we wanna provide that so that they have
it. That's great. So being equipped for the
needs of each patient.
And then looking at what strategies have worked,
what strategies have your organization seen work when
tackling some of these challenges? And what's one
recommendation you have for health care leaders to
stay ahead?
So I think it's really important to have
a patient needs to have access to health
care,
which is one of the reasons why we
opened our ASC in the first place because
in the current space that we're at, there
are hospital systems,
but there's no true
ASC in that area.
And so we were very happy that we
could open it and stay afloat
for the patients in that underserved area. We
have,
a large
Medicare population
as well as, managed care
health organizations
that use our facility as well in terms
of the patient population.
So just trying to provide that service to
the patient is really important, I think.
Now transitioning from the patient to more of
the
provider side, how can leaders ensure that their
staff are well equipped to help patients navigate
the financial aspects of their care? How does
this benefit patient to provider relationships?
So we have this question because health care
is expensive,
and it's becoming more expensive. And a lot
of people,
they are choosing
not to have health insurance or they're under
insured or their deductibles are through the roof.
So how do you
how how can you provide care for somebody
who, you know, has all these financial challenges?
So one of the things, obviously, we try
to do payment plans, we try to do
CareCredit with them, we try to,
give them some sort form
of financial,
options to them to do this. In addition,
they we also have a other program, and
we call it a bundled pricing
program. So let's just use an example. Patient
has a $10,000
deductible.
Their insurance,
you know, for them to use the insurance,
it might cost them 7 or 8,000
for a,
a simple procedure
that
in our bundle pricing program, maybe they can
pay that one price. Maybe it's 1500, maybe
it's 2 $1,000,
you know, and it's much more economical for
them. So then they don't use their insurance,
but they just use the cash program,
and that's what they do. So those are
other choices that we can give them. And
so that's worked extremely well.
We've had people come from across the United
States actually to use that because they, they
honestly did not have the insurance or people
from other countries have come to. And where,
for example, in Canada, they might've had to
wait to have a total knee replacement done.
You know, they have a waiting system.
And when your number comes up is when
it's your turn. But they found that our
bundled price was cheaper for them in the
long run, plus they could get it done
as soon as possible. So we've had people
come like that and have their yeah. It's
really a good deal. That's that's great insight.
And it also shows it goes back to
the problem with access to care. Access to
care. If it's easier for them to get
it done quickly or at a better price.
You can give everybody insurance. That's not the
problem. Right. The
problem is how are they gonna pay for
it? The other problem is then how do
they pay for the co insurances? How do
they paying the co pays? How are they
paying the deductibles? You know, we have to
address those needs. It's much easier for a
patient to
to pay $2 or $3,000
than
shell out $2 or $3,000
every single month to have that. So I
think we have to look at the big
picture sometimes.
That's great. Well thank you so much for
joining us today, Doctor. Kikiri.
It's been a pleasure and I look forward
to connecting with you again. Thank you so
much guys. Thank you for having me here.