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forward slash beckers podcast.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast, and we are live at the business
and operations of ASCs.
I'm joined currently by doctor Wes Battiste, who
is the president of Destin Surgery Center and
Destin Anesthesia.
So, doctor Battiste, thanks for joining me today.
Would love for you to just take a
moment and introduce yourself and tell us a
little bit more about your role in the
industry.
Of course. And thank you for the introduction.
Forty years in health care. In 1981,
began as a respiratory therapy tech at Emory
University Hospital when I was in training as
an undergrad and then graduate school.
Anesthesia background back as a clinician for ten
years, and that ten years,
led to opening my first surgery center in
02/2001,
developed it from the ground up,
purchased the land,
construction management syndication, capital equipment,
regulatory compliance, and then have operated that center
for twenty five years, developed another center in
02/2010 and a third in 02/2020,
which has led to now doing some consulting
work with Avanza Healthcare Strategies
to, to try to scale up and share
some of the experience from those twenty five
years.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time
to be here today.
Let's start our conversation with ASC volume. So
this is expected to increase by 16%
across the country by the year 2032.
With this growth, what is the most pressing
challenge to maintaining a positive patient experience?
So a positive patient experience, I think, is
the key to all sustainable growth. And I
think
the first and first most challenging
metric that we have to deal with in
in a patient experience and and the graphic
growth is is staffing. We have a staffing
shortage, whether it be from nursing, whether it
be from anesthesia, and even from physician
level.
And people make the place. People
define your outcomes, and the the better people
you have, the better your outcome. So for
me, it's always been a success is,
is measured by how we care for our
patients. That's our product. We wanna have
a product that, is the best product out
there. That's that's how we care for outpatient.
Patients having surgery, and, we start that by
caring for our people. We care well for
our people, and they care well for our
business.
People know the difference between being treated well
or being cared for well.
Absolutely.
And going off of that, what strategies have
you seen work for your organization to tackle
some of those challenges?
And what is the recommendation you have for
health care leaders looking to stay ahead?
So staffing being the shortage and and the
problematic that it is for us as an
ASCs, you have to retain people. You have
to have good retention.
It's easier to retain than it is to
recruit,
and, the cost of turnover is substantial. So,
again, it goes back to
how is your organization's
reputation as to how it cares for its
people, as to how it treats its people?
Are you are you truly taking care of
them and their needs, or are you constantly
flexing them and,
not treating me as you would treat your
own family? And that that kinda comes back
to it as you would just treat
treat your your your employees, treat your staff,
treat your patients as if they were a
family member. And then second to that is
just keeping a focus, keeping an eye on
the prize. The the prize here, as I
mentioned earlier, is truly the product. And just
in a very simple minded way, if we
have the best product out there, then we
are gonna
we're gonna be successful. And the best product
out there is delivering the best patient care
and outpatient basis there is. And so,
we focus on that product. Everything else follows
from it. And as we get more successful,
we have to make sure we refocus and
don't lose sight of that prize.
EBITDA is very important, but EBITDA comes from,
delivering a really, really good product.
And shifting gears a little bit toward the
financial side, how can leaders ensure their staff
are well equipped to help patients navigate the
financial aspects of care? And how does this
benefit patient provider relationships?
So with the Transparency Act that started a
a year or so ago,
it's very important that patients are actually educated
about their medical bills. So many patients don't
understand. They they they get an EOB. They
get a they get a medical bill. They
they just can't put the two and two
together. The transparency act really encourages and actually
forces us to share with the patient their
their out of pocket expense prior to prior
to their procedure.
That in the end, over time, this is
gonna allow patients to actually become shoppers just
as they would shop for any other product.
They'll be they will be able to compare
one surgery center to the hospital outpatient department
or one ASC to another ASC.
So it's very important that staff are educated
in how insurance verification,
the whole process so they actually can accurately
predict patients
out of pot out of pocket expenses. Second
part is it's very important for centers to
to focus on being in network with payers.
Out of network is, just not a healthy
place for the financials,
responsibility of the patient. So to be in
network
with contracts,
so that you can then exactly detail to
the patient what their expense would be. Third,
you you wanna offer payment plans. You you
wanna you wanna make sure you're authentic. We're
there to care for patients. And even in
a for profit world, you need policies,
procedures, and things set up to to have
indigent care, to have charity care. So it
all comes back to really having a staff
that's educated, that understands
this is a this is a a provider
patient relationship when we can be genuine about
the cost of the care and be most
cost effective in delivering that care.
And is there anything else you'd like to
share or closing remarks,
for the podcast today as we wrap up?
No. I think I would really just like
to communicate,
what's been the theme of kind of the
podcast so far, and that is
that, so many times we it we we
we will look at health care as a
business, which it is a business, but it's
it's also the element of actually touching patients,
taking care of someone. It's their mother, father,
brother, sister, and that
that we we don't lose sight of that.
That if if we do that well,
we do that very well,
the EBITDA, the business metrics will come, and,
the efficiencies will be just automatically built in.
Your people will care. They'll take care of
your business. So I just I would really
just just try to make sure that focus
is prevalent, and,
we're in health care, so we we care
for people.
Wonderful. Well, doctor Patiste, thanks so much for
taking the time to join me today on
the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Again, we're live in
the at the business and operations of ASCs.
Thank you.