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forward slash beckers podcast.
This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we're recording live at the thirty
first annual business and operations of ASCs.
I'm currently joined by Jeffrey Flynn, who is
the president at the New York State Association
of Ambulatory Surgery Centers.
Thanks for being here today. Let's have you
start by sharing a little bit more about
yourself and your work in the ASC space.
Thank you. Thank you for letting me be
here. As I am, I'm Jeff Flynn, and
I'm the president of the New York State
Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers. And I'm also
the chief operating officer of the Gramercy Surgery
Centers in New York.
I've been in the industries for twenty three
years now and have seen tremendous growth across
the board in it as more higher acuity
procedures get to us and access of care
opens up. And,
actually, the ease of certain CON states too
has actually been helpful.
Wonderful.
Well, let's start with the ASC market. In
The US, this is projected to reach $60,800,000,000
by 2030, and it continues to experience strong
year over year growth. So from your perspective,
what are the most significant trends in market
forces driving this expansion, and how should ASC
leaders be preparing today?
I think cost is the biggest factor that
goes into the factors are just we've, have
an unsustainable,
climate health care cost in this country, and
recognizing that the appropriate cost of service are
not being followed. And as
insurers, payers,
and employers are actually now demanding that they
wanna see with technology happening,
the higher acuity cases going into the,
lower cost settings, which are cost more efficient.
We also provide a better patient experience because
it's not the chaos of a hospital.
Things run on time and go forward. So
I see just as more cases keep going
our direction,
and we lose cases going forward. Like, for
instance, cataracts eventually will be in the next
two or three years in the office based
setting.
I don't think that's a thing to be
concerned about. I think we embrace the higher
acuity procedures as we bring those to us.
Absolutely.
And from AI and robotic surgeries to advanced
EHR systems,
technology remains a make or break factor and
also a critical driver of ASC operations at
scale. So how do you see deeper tech
integration shaping the way ASCs deliver care and
manage their business over the next few years?
I think this is huge, and we actually
just had our New York State conference where
we really did
dive into this with one of our panels.
From the situation of bringing and introducing robots
into the,
the
ASC setting, we're not gonna have a choice
in the future.
The reality is is orthopedic surgeons, general surgeons
coming out of a training now
are looking for that robot. And unless they
have that robot for a crutch, that's a
real issue of them coming to the surgery
centers. There's less and less laparoscopic surgery as
the robotic is taking more aim for the
future.
Senses of billing and just expanding your bandwidth
with certain simple things like
that it's actually it sounds like a real
person making your phone call
to your patient confirmations.
In a in a fairly busy center, patient
confirmations take about four hours a day. If
you can expand your bandwidth that that person's
doing something else, that could be huge for
you.
And with 60% of health systems considering
ASC joint ventures and many ASCs already 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 there is
a big force, and I've seen
throughout the country in different areas, there are
some hospital systems that don't know how to
do it, but there are some hospital systems
that really have known how to do it.
And really have been in a situation where
they can actually
understand that they need to offload certain cases
to to have room to do the higher
acuity cases in the hospital, and they've embraced
that.
We have two particular health care systems in
New York, the Mount Sinai health care system,
their joint venture programs and also the Northwell
joint venture programs,
where it's a variety of different things, whether
it's majority owned by the hospital or minority
owned by the hospital systems.
These centers have run efficiently, and they've actually
gotten access of care to patients. And I
think that's the key factors. We have ambulatory
health care is what's getting access of care
in the community.
Well, Jeff, thanks for being here. I'd love
to see if you have any other final
thoughts you'd like to share or anything we
didn't touch on that you'd like to discuss
on the podcast.
I just think anybody looking at the ambulatory
surgery center setting and ambulatory health care in
general,
the one concern I think we have is
we're somewhat having a brain drain, so to
speak, because
nobody trains to come into our fields. The
the programs in educations now and the master's
programs and some of the undergraduate programs are
all geared towards hospital setting systems, and I'd
like and we've been working with some,
and I think the national organization needs to
work
more carefully with some of the education programs
to open up ambulatory health care management
as,
a teaching ability to go through in externships
and internships because that's a concern I have
as we further grow. But in the ASC
community, this really is our time to for
further grow. So it is a very exciting
time.
Well, thanks so much for being here. And
again, we are recording live at the thirty
first annual business and operations of ASCs.
Thank you for having me.