Hello. This is Francesca Matthews with the Deckers
ASC Review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Kathy
Meccia,
RNBC,
BSN,
CNOR,
CRC,
ST,
nurse administrator at Lake George Surgery Center. Kathy,
thank you so much for being here today.
And thank you for asking me.
Alright. To start off, could you just please
introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
about your background?
Certainly.
My name is Kathy Meccia, as you'd said.
I've been a nurse for
forty two years,
and
I've worked in nursing administration for over thirty
years, and all of that has been in
the perioperative surgical arena.
I was a director at a hospital
for thirty,
let's see. I worked there for thirty two
years, but a lot of that was also
in other administration, pediatric, med surg, CCU, ER.
So the surgical arena I've been in for
over thirty years.
I opened a surgery center five years ago
and have worked in the ASC arena since,
which has been an interesting and challenging
transition.
Yeah. I'm excited to hear more about what
that transition has been like.
What are the top three trends you're following
in health care and ASCs today?
The biggest trend right now for an ASC
is increasing competition.
It has caught on that it is the
future
of surgical health care.
And so most of the ASCs
are consolidating,
partnering,
joining with other facilities,
to market themselves to grow.
And that's been
even the experience for us. We have recently
partnered with a bigger
hospital and health care facility
to be able to grow in ourselves and
in the market of ASCs.
The second trend that I'm seeing a lot
in
is more in the arena
of stack netting reimbursements, if you will.
The collections are poor,
for ASCs. And I imagine even for hospitals,
although they can they can assume a better,
debt than an ASC can. So that's been
quite a trend lately.
Seems like,
the reimbursements tend to go down, not up.
So covering cost only most of the time
when you're getting collections in.
Analyzing case profitability has been really important for
us and knowing
the balance that you need to have of
the surgical complexity
to be able to offset
the cost,
of doing business.
You have to work with a good billing
company as well when we're talking about reimbursement,
getting getting some good insurance contracts
that, you know, you're getting better collections back.
And then, also,
relative to that is making sure that your
staff, your your front end staff are getting
good preauthorizations
prior to patients coming.
And, of course, in the no surprise act,
letting patients know upfront what is expected of
them
to be paying and what the cost is.
That seems to help a lot in satisfaction,
but also helps a lot with, keeping up
with the reimbursements and collections.
And then the third trend that I see
a lot of is more the rising cost
that goes along with that of everything. Supply
cost, medication costs have went up, and,
I don't wanna be labor it, but anesthesia.
Anesthesia costs are so high right now that
it's very difficult to offset,
what you're getting in collections
and isn't going to
pay the anesthesia providers
because that that that just makes us work
harder on
consolidating
our block times and utilization,
which in the end can be a positive.
Right? If you're using more of your utilization
of your blocks,
then you're also
more efficiently
staffing and,
operating your ASC.
Absolutely. Yeah. The anesthesia component is something we
talk about a lot on this podcast.
So we are not not belaboring. It's it's
just the truth and the reality right now,
it seems.
But onto, you know, kind of more exciting
good news things. What are you most excited
about in the ASC world right now?
That's a that's a better topic. Yes. We're,
getting more excited about transitioning. I've noticed now
that,
we're getting referrals from actual insurance companies
where they're telling the patients
that they'll approve them to go to an
ASC, but not to a hospital.
So that's exciting for us to see the
insurance companies are really picking up on the
lower cost
that an ASC
is gonna bill,
versus what a hospital will bill for the
procedures.
So that's exciting. It will be exciting to
see if CMS can, give us a little
bit more,
from that inpatient only list so that we
can do a little more in the ASC
off of that for the Medicare patients.
And then also when you,
see that the ASC market is becoming more
attractive
to physicians.
Right? So we're seeing more surgeons that are
attracted to the ASCs
for many reasons, but,
biggest reason being safety and efficiency.
They're seeing it as well, so it's becoming
more attractive to them to move over to,
doing more cases at an ASC versus a
hospital.
Absolutely. Yeah. No. That trend you mentioned of,
you know, seeing
insurance companies,
you know, kind of push increasingly towards ASCs.
It's something we've definitely picked up on here
at Becker's as well and something definitely just
very interesting to hear.
Mhmm.
And how are you thinking about growth over
the next twelve months?
Growth for an ASC is it's it that
actually is quite exciting as well. So looking
at growth
as adding multidisciplinary,
adding more surgeons, adding more specialties.
So my center is a multidisciplinary
center, which is good.
It costs more for a start up and
to run just because of the capital outlay
and the, varying
supply costs that you have to have for
the multispecialties.
However, it is nice to have an ASC
that does.
We do ophthalmology, we do podiatry, we do
orthopedics,
we do pain, and we do general surgery
including endoscopy right now.
So,
growth and adding more specialty, more procedures
is very exciting for us. The other thing
that we're looking at for growth is a
possibility of opening up on a weekend day.
So maybe a Saturday for half day, full
day, but that's something that I think would
be beneficial
for the communities
to have that because everybody works not everybody.
A lot of people work Monday through Friday,
and having that availability as an option, I
think, will help us grow as
well. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think something that's
always interesting about ASCs is just being nimble
and able to make those accommodations and adjustments
more quickly than, you know, some larger organizations
and, accommodate community needs in that way.
Absolutely.
And is there anything else relevant to this
conversation that you think is important to share?
Just that I mean, ASCs are becoming more
exciting because they're becoming more
the trend for minor surgeries and a lot
of even major surgeries.
And I have found that from transitioning from
a hospital setting to the ASC setting,
the customer satisfaction
is off the charts. So it's nice to
have that from both physicians,
patients, but not just patients and visitors that
come with them. So it's safe to come
to an ASC. We don't take care of
sick patients, and,
it's nice to see that, you know, that
overall patient satisfaction and physician satisfaction. It makes
work fun again.
Absolutely. I like I like ending on that
note because that is all for you all
I have for you today, Kathy.
But thank you so much for joining us
today.
It's been a pleasure speaking with you, and
I look forward to connecting with you again
in the future. Thanks so much, Franchesca.