Hello. This is Francesca Matthews with the Becker's
ASC review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Amanda
Ryan, DO MBA,
chief executive officer and physician owner at Advance
ASC of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Amanda, thank you so much for being here
today.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Yeah. Of course. Me too. And to start
us off, could you please just introduce yourself
and tell us a little bit more about
your background?
Yes. So, again, my name is Amanda Ryan.
I'm an interventional cardiologist.
Finished my training back in
02/2010.
Graduated from medical school in 02/2003.
So
then practiced in Florida for about five years,
and then I've been here for ten years
in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
I worked for a large hospital system for
six years and then decided to venture out
on my own into the ASC space
and launched an independent practice four years ago,
and an ASC,
eighteen months ago officially opened.
Hey. Excellent. Well, yeah, that's not not too
long ago. So I'm excited to get your
perspective as,
you know, somebody who's kind of in the
the early stages ish of your journey.
That being said, what are the top three
trends you're following today in health care and
ASCs?
Yeah. So I definitely think reimbursements.
And in the cardiovascular
world, there has been some good 2026
is looking encouraging
for bringing
AFib ablations and other kinds of EP procedures,
as well as a little bit increased reimbursement
in some of the interventional procedures.
So that's good staffing. I think that's just
a common theme that we're all dealing with
and how to be creative with staffing models.
And then in a rural area, just
a lot of lack of access to care
for patients, lack of
access to quality staff. So really trying to
be creative again at how we fill those
gaps.
Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. That definitely echoes
what I'm hearing from other ASU leaders, especially
those in in rural areas. I think, you
know, a lot of those issues tend to
kind of compound on themselves.
Definitely. How do we leverage technology? You know,
AI. We we talk a lot about AI
and health care, but what exactly does that
mean for the rural practice in ASC, and
how are we going to really
utilize it to decrease
wait times, improve outcomes, track quality markers,
decrease the need for some staff. I mean,
again, I don't think, you know, some people
have a fear of AI
replacing people. We'd like to make the people
we have more efficient, obviously.
Mhmm. Mhmm. And I think it also seems
like there's, you know, there's so much talk
about AI. And it seems like especially for
rural centers, there's some degree of meeting folks
where they're at, and we can't just say,
you know, blanket statements about this will or
won't help because different centers in different parts
of the country are just Right. In different
places.
We have a lot of calls that are
just confirming appointments. And so we said it
would be great if we had AI that
could just just help us with that piece.
And we looked, but it was, like, $4
a call, honestly, and that's not too realistic.
Right. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. I was like, oh,
that sounds like great. But $4 a call,
we're probably getting 400 calls a day. So,
clearly, that's probably gonna be out of our
market of what we can afford to pay.
Right. Right. It's making a little bit more
than someone at the front desk at that
point, it sounds like. Yeah.
So with that being said as well, what
are what else are you most excited about
in this space?
I think growth. I mean, the cardiovascular
space for ASCs is really wide open.
I think the chance for physician autonomy
and that doesn't really mean like, to me,
it doesn't
mean
staunch independence.
I answer to no one because I think
that's a naive
thought. We all are answering to one another
and having accountability in our health care system.
But I think finding
people to partner with that maybe are more
in line with our vision and mission is
really what we're looking for.
As we look to expand our services,
we look to partner with other physicians who
are like minded in their approach, which rural
health care has a unique,
you know, a a unique approach.
Mhmm. Absolutely.
That's so interesting just what you said about
physician autonomy. It's something I'm hearing so much
lately because I think, you know, people are
really a lot of folks, it seems, are
seeking that increased autonomy,
leaving larger health systems kind of,
and finding their own definition of what that's
gonna mean to them. So it's interesting to
hear your perspective on that.
Definitely.
And like I said, I seek to partner
with other like minded
advanced business
and physician partners,
but it's just I have a very
narrow set of what I think is an
appropriate mission and vision, and I need people
to fall within that in order to really
help us achieve our goals.
Mhmm. Absolutely. And, I mean, you you just
touched on the growth aspect a lot there,
but how else are you thinking about growth
over the next twelve months?
So, again, adding service lines, we're really looking
at adding electrophysiology
as atrial fibrillation
is epidemic and underserved.
People often waiting six to nine months traveling
for three, four hundred miles in our region
to see an electrophysiologist.
So we're really trying to come up with
a way to bring electrophysiology
services to our area, and that's really our
biggest, growth focus right now.
Absolutely.
Well, that is all I have for you
today, Amanda. Thank you so much for joining
us. It has been a pleasure speaking with
you, and I look forward to connecting with
you again in the future. Yes. We'll see
you at the next Becker's conference.
See you then. Okay. Great. Thank you. Yep.
Thank you. Bye.