This is Laura Dierda with the Becker's Ambulatory
Surgery Center's podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Jennifer
Friend, chief executive officer and owner at Friend
Surgical Solutions.
Jennifer, it's a pleasure to have you on
the podcast today. It's great to be here.
Thank you for having me. Now I'm really
excited for our conversation because I know just
the ASC space is so fascinating today and
really a lot happening in health care. It's
very dynamic. So, I know we've got a
couple questions here. But before we dive in,
can you introduce yourself and tell us a
little bit about your background?
As you said, I'm Jennifer Friend. I own
and operate Sun Surgical Solutions.
Sun Surgical Solutions is a consultant and medical
billing group. Although, I try to focus more
on the consultant side where I help providers
with any licensure needs, any concerns,
compliance, all of those
tedious tasks on the business end of health
care.
So that way they can focus on the
operations and keeping things going. Although I do
love the operation side too, I'm I find
myself most happiest when I'm in a procedure
room helping, you know, helping
a provider, you know, get cases done and
get patients the care they need. I I
have a master's degree from George Washington University.
I also have a my bachelor's degree is
in political science, which you wouldn't think ties
to health care. But actually knowing how the
government works, how the government operates
is very helpful in understanding Medicare and Medicare,
Medicaid, CMS, HHS,
you know, all the terms that we've heard
being thrown around in
in in the news lately and how it
operates and how it ties into our practice
in health care.
That's amazing to hear, in in, you know,
what a great service to be able to
provide surgery centers and those physician owners.
Now what are the top three trends that
you're following in health care and ASCs today?
I do see some growth,
although,
you know, obviously, given
Medicare
and Medicare is
acuity of what's going on in in the
AFC setting. However,
you know, with the Medicaid cuts and and
the other cuts coming,
it's making me a little wary of where
we're of where they're going, but I still
do see growth in the different procedures that
we can provide in an ambulatory surgery setting.
I also see more coming into
moving the ambulatory surgery space and coming into
an office based surgery facility surgery setting where
you're able to do more monitored anesthesia care,
some lighter anesthesia coverage,
and doing that safely in an office setting
as well to help offset the surgery centers
that are now taking on more,
replacements and all of those types of things
and the cardiac procedures that they're doing. So
that's that's one. I still don't think private
equity I know they've gotten kind of a
somewhat of a bad rap lately or they've
been on the sidelines a little bit. I
still think there's
they're gonna be players or those that wanna
come back in soon.
I also just see people
trying to just keep their heads above water
right now with some of the changes
that are coming. So I think that's hesitation's
gonna be the other trend that's gonna happen,
I think, soon.
Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of
sense. You know, really
dynamic,
industry, lots of changes, and I appreciate
everything we talked about in terms of, you
know, how what procedures coming from the hospital
to the AFC and from the AFC to
the office based setting, looking at private equity,
and other opportunities
for,
surgery centers to
gain additional financial resources and and see where
where they grow.
And then, you know, as you mentioned, just
kind of continuing to watch the field,
field evolve. It's just been fascinating.
Based on a lot of those changes, what
are you excited about right now? What do
you think is really important for surgery center
owners and operators to know and and think
about as they're seeing the the field change
around them?
I think a lot of it, we all
kind of know, but, you know, I'm always
excited to talk
to physician owners and, you know, do they
really know what their operating costs are? Do
they know how much it costs them to
do that, or are there ways to
trim spending so, therefore,
there's not much fat on a there can
be fat on ASC depending on the procedures.
But, you know, with Medicare
potentially cutting some,
excuse me, cutting some rates,
where where can we make sure we're providing
the most cost savings,
to make sure that the ASC is operating
efficiently
and effectively?
But I'm also excited about the different procedures
that are coming in. I primarily focus on
spine pain and ortho.
But with the rise, like I said, of
earlier of cardiac procedures coming in and being
able to do more of those at and
outside of the hospital setting,
I'm excited to see where that goes. I'm
also taking an interest in AI and and
how that can help how that can help
surgery centers. Like, I know
surgeons that use AI to help write their
op reports or their patient notes.
And, yes, of course, they review it because
they're still responsible for what's in the note.
But if it can if AI can help
do some of that or help keep inventory
going back to cost saving measures, if AI
can help with either of those, and that
allows the doctor to focus more time on
the patients and less time on the administrative
side, but then it also lets
the clinic owners know with AI and inventory
better of what their costs are because that
all can be going on in the background.
So there's so there's a couple different things
that I'm excited about right now.
Absolutely. I love that. And, certainly,
you know,
it'd be fascinating to see again how technology
continues to play a role in, what surgery
centers are able to do and how they're
able to continue to operate at a very
high level and become more efficient.
So I'm gonna wrap wrap up here. How
are you thinking about growth over the next
twelve months or so? What does that look
like for you?
Well, I guess, for my ASCs, it's really
gonna depend
on
where they're located.
You know, I operate mostly in municipal areas,
and so, therefore,
some of the Medicaid cuts that are coming
and most of NAICs don't take it, but
it's gonna trickle down through through everything.
They don't take Medicaid because they don't have
to in the state of Florida
to get their licensure,
but rural areas are gonna be hit the
hardest. So that's I'm concerned about, unfortunately, negative
growth in those areas and the widening gap
in care because I lived
in my undergrad area in a in a
rural area, and then I spent several years
there afterwards after after my undergrad. And, you
know, some people are traveling twenty, thirty, 40
miles to get care. Or my family farm,
you know, to get a good cardiologist, you're
traveling over an hour already.
If they lose those
those access points, you're gonna be traveling longer
and longer distances to get
basic care that everyone should have. So
I'm a little bullish right now on growth
because I think just kinda kinda need to
see what's gonna happen.
But but in municipal areas or city areas,
because I I live in the Tampa Bay
region, I, you know, feel like we have
ASCDs on every every other corner similar to
Walgreens and Pasco's,
so they're all around.
Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. You
know, when you see that expansion of
additional retail office buildings and kind of the
disruption in the health care space, you know,
how do you see the providers, the medical
offices and surgery centers adapting and,
you know, shifting their own strategies?
I think more and more providers are they're
looking at additional sources,
you know, of of revenue. Do they get
out of,
you know, the traditional
health insurance,
Medicare, Medicaid models? Do they accept for Shanbury
patients? Do they accept work comp? Do they
accept other forms of of
of patients in? Or, you know, I know
several a couple classmates of mine from my
master's program, they've gone completely to they'll accept
the health insurance as additional payment, but they've
gone to complete concierge type practice.
I haven't seen that in the ASC setting
yet because I I think it would be
hard to make sure that you have
with the cost of running an ASC to
make sure that you have everything you need
to to have an effective
full line of products to be able to
offer in a surgery setting to go concierge.
That may start playing in, taking more concierge
surgery patients soon too to help offset some
of the lower, you know, the lower reimbursement
or the loss in other revenue.
Got it. That's fascinating to hear. Jennifer, thank
you so much for joining us on the
podcast today. This has been such a formative
conversation, and I look forward to connecting with
you again soon. Sounds good. I look forward
to it. Thank you.