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forward /beckerspodcast.
Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
My name is Chanel Bunger and I'm recording
live at the thirty first annual Business and
Operations of ASC Conference in Chicago
and sitting down with Sean Gibson, the CEO
at Remedy Surgery Centers. Sean, thank you so
much for joining me today. Good afternoon. Thank
you for having me. Perfect. Well, to kick
us off, can you share a bit about
yourself and your work in the ASC space?
Sure. I am a
a a CEO for Remedy Surgery Centers.
I,
all in all, have 14
surgery centers,
throughout the state of Texas.
I've lived in both the ASC world as
well as corporate
America in the hospital setting. So ASCs have
taught me
much more than the hospital system has in
a very short period of time. It's it's
been a good run.
Perfect. Thank you so much for that introduction.
And now the ASC market in The US
is projected to reach almost $61,000,000,000
by 2030 and continues to experience strong year
over year growth. From your perspective, I'm wondering
what are you thinking,
are the most significant trends in market forces
driving the this expansion? And how should ASC
leaders be preparing today?
It's no surprise.
I think the market is being driven by,
our payers,
but also
with, the Internet and people having the ability
to search things much easier today, I think
it has,
is now being driven by the consumer as
well. So
we've got kind of a twofold
scenario where our patients
are looking for care and,
through data that we share on the Internet,
with pricing and so forth and so on.
They're they're making the conclusions and coming to
the ASC market, and it's just driving it
very quickly.
Got it. And now moving forward,
from AI and robotic surgeries to advanced EHR
systems, technology remains both a make or break
factor and a critical driver of ASC operations
at scale.
How do you see deeper tech integration shaping
the way ASCs deliver care and manage their
businesses over the next few years?
So,
actually, technology is what really started me coming
to these meetings.
It was AI was
everybody heard of it, but I didn't really
understand what it was and more so how
much did it cost and what was I
gonna get out of it. So
I think,
technology
obviously
is if if you're not educated on it
now, you're way behind. And the
abilities for us to mine our data and
come to the negotiating table with the payers
using
AI driven data,
and having the ability to
source that information and know what your competitors
are doing.
It
you would be a fool not to to
have that information in, and it's allowed me
the ability to
go to the payers and negotiate better contracts
with the data that
we already all know that they have on
us before they even get there. Got it.
And is there a specific technology or innovation
that stands out to you as especially transformative?
You know, billing,
the billing software,
the ability to
our commercial payers have been using AI,
to shoot claims back and
pull data on
slowing our claim payments down. And
we now have the ability,
through that software
and reduce price to
do the same thing. So we're able to
use AI to
push those those
commonly
denied claims back. We can look at,
different,
procedures that are slow pays versus
no pays from the insurance industry. It's it's
been very useful.
So I I think that the
the ability
to mine your billing data and use the
AI to,
I guess, help you without adding extra FTEs
is makes our world a lot easier.
Of course. And now switching gears a bit
here, with 60% of health systems considering ASC
joint ventures and many ASCs already partnering partnering
with systems in their communities,
what opportunities do you see for collaboration,
whether with other providers or vendors, to strengthen
patient care and operational efficiency?
I think that, hospitals overall,
being a
a past hospital leader, we deal with population
issues, volume issues coming through the hospitals. And
ASCs give
the ability for us to take care of
not as sick patients, less critically ill patients,
to manage surgical procedures
very quickly and easily,
reducing the volume that actually goes to the
hospitals. The the other side of that is
it reduces reimbursement going to those hospitals as
well. So we have to
find an an easy
midway
space that
the hospital doesn't feel like you're taking their
business, and
you you are still able to
share information with them, share page your patient
population,
with them, and ultimately
do good patient care safely
and get reimbursed for it. Absolutely. Well, Sean,
I I wanna thank you for your time
today. But before I let you go, is
there anything else that we didn't touch on
or any final thoughts you'd
like to share? I think, from the ASC
markets generally,
I think this have been a big,
big talk here this session.
We as ASC leaders really need to
bond really bond together and
let our legislative folks know,
that, you know, we're not gonna put up
with
less pay payment opportunities, you know, be able
to compete on a market doing the same
cases with the same
equipments.
I think the word is really starting to
get out there, and that might be your
competitor across town, but that that person also
is your partner in helping getting that information
out to congress. And and there's there's members
that
are here today
that are very involved as as congress members.
So it's very interesting seeing that come about.
That's amazing to hear. Well, Sean, I wanna
thank you once again for your time today
and for sharing your insights on the Becker's
healthcare podcast. Thank you so much.