At athenahealth,
we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier, a
healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier patients.
But the complexities of modern health care tech
make it hard for you and your care
teams to focus on what matters
most? That's where athenahealth can help. Our AI
native all in one solutions reduce administrative burdens,
streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights
when clinicians need it most. That means fewer
clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom
lines.
Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice
can be that much simpler with athenahealth.
See how simpler is healthier@athenahealth.com.
Hello. This is Francesca Matthews with the Becker's
ASC review podcast.
I'm thrilled to be joined today by Myra
Ray, manager of surgical services at Franciscan Healthcare.
Myra, thank you so much for being here
today.
Thank you for having me.
To start us off, could you please introduce
yourself and tell us a little bit about
your background?
Sure. I'm Myra Ray. I am a master's
prepared
nurse in nursing leadership at Franciscan Healthcare in
West Point, Nebraska.
I have a background,
that spans
over twenty years.
I have been
everywhere from a level two trauma center OR
to an ASC
and have worked in a variety of perioperative
settings. Currently,
I am
over a preop
OR
in PACU.
So we do
everything from preadmission testing all the way through
discharge.
Yeah. Excited to to get into the discussion
today.
Just to kinda start us off, what are
the top three trends that you're following in
health care and ASCs today?
Well, of course, as with anyone,
we're
trending in monitoring staffing shortages and increased labor
costs. It's always,
something that's on the forefront
in our mind is recruitment and retention,
and
how are we gonna keep up with the
increasing
cost of labor.
Then,
a second thing that we're looking at is
the higher acuity procedures.
We've seen an increase in the last six
months of higher acuity procedures, new procedures that
we haven't done in the past, and,
just looking overall at ASCs across the country
and and what's going on.
The third thing that we look at is
reimbursement and difficulty of prior authorizations.
You know?
All the procedures that were once
not requiring prior authorizations, we're finding more and
more frequently that insurers are,
seeking prior authorizations
in things that we didn't have to have
before.
Mhmm. Definitely. Like, I yeah. Those themes that
you you mentioned there
are definitely resonate with, you know, the the
providers and administrators, CEOs that I speak with
every day here at Becker's. And I'm curious
kind of moving from there, what are you
most excited about right now as it relates
to ASCs, health care, anything in between?
You know, two of the things that I'm
most excited about right now
are growth. And,
the growth that we've seen here over the
last six months have led us
to seek a remodel or actually a new
build,
to expand our services. We are, we've expanded
our volumes by
about 25%
in the last six months to a year.
So we're seeing a massive amount of growth.
I'm out of space,
whether it be for equipment or for patients.
We're using unique areas that we haven't used
in the past to preop and discharge patients.
So,
it's a,
a challenge at best, but it's also a
very exciting time to see the growth, to
see the
new potentials
of increased acuity procedures,
and
it's just an exciting time overall and all
the way around here.
Mhmm. Absolutely. Again, that just definitely resonates with
what we're hearing here at Becker's. And, you
know, you mentioned growth. How
curious if you could kind of follow-up on
that. How are you thinking about growth over
the next twelve months?
Prime example, we have a plastic surgeon that
joined us about
six months ago, and he's doing,
several new procedures. We're,
we just did a rib plating.
We are looking at doing rhinoplasties.
Plastics is something that's new for us. We
had not done in the past here.
So looking at expanding services that we offer
in a very rural area of Nebraska
that haven't been seen around here, patients not
having to travel as far,
it's,
you know, just amazing
at
being able to offer services that have not
been in this region.
Mhmm. Yeah. I was about to say, I
can imagine just being in ASC, which I
think everyone in the ASC space is looking
at a lot of potential for growth and
then, yeah, being in an area where there's
limited access.
Yeah. It seems like there's a a lot
on the horizon as far as where where
we can go from here.
And, you know, with that, you know, with
the growth and the excitement of it also
comes the the challenge of staffing.
You know, how do you being in a
rural area, how do you come up with
staffing that you haven't had before? And it
leads to a whole plethora of
a a new exciting venture. And if I
could say anything, it's partner with your nursing
programs, the colleges that have nursing programs. And
one of the things that we've done to
try to
recruit new nurses is we've created a scholarship
program so
that we pay ahead
of the nurse going to school so that
they don't have the out of pocket expense.
So rather than an alternative to tuition reimbursement
is the scholarship program. So we provide a
two year scholarship
for a associate degree program here at the
local college.
And we've expanded that to
other universities in the area.
Super interesting that you mentioned that. Yeah. I
feel like I feel like among the rural
ASU leaders I speak with or even in
just, like, you know, less super crowded areas,
do you think that fit when when I
ask, you know, kind of how are you
getting creative to talk about to figure out
staffing? How how do you stay afloat when
a lot of the times the cards are
stacked against you? It's that connection to community
and that,
you know, kind of yeah. Leaning on the
community for support and having that that connection
there that is can kinda set you apart
and keep keep you afloat.
Absolutely. And, you know, being in a rural
area, it is so important that you have
the support of the community and getting them
involved in helping the hospital to grow,
ensuring that they want to come to your
facility, that you're getting the quality
care that you could receive anywhere. I mean,
we're an hour from Omaha, an hour and
a half from Lincoln.
They could easily travel there and back in
a day's time, but
we provide things here in town with the
highest quality
and physicians that actually come from
Omaha or Norfolk or,
Lincoln,
you know, physicians that are traveling to other
from other larger areas to come here and
practice in rural
Nebraska.
Absolutely.
Is there anything else that I haven't
touched on so far that you feel like
is important to discuss in this conversation?
I well, I think,
overall, one of the biggest things is
you're looking at not just patient satisfaction,
but we also have to look at employee
satisfaction. So if you're going back to the
staffing shortage and the increasing labor cost, you
have to come up with unique ways to
attract staff.
So you have to
be open minded
and creative when it comes to scheduling, when
it comes to,
compensation.
So, you know, if you want a quality
nurse, it's not all about compensation. It's about
the benefits that you give them. So if
you give them the benefit of self scheduling
of,
hey.
We're in rural Nebraska.
We have
nurses that their spouses are farmers.
That means it it's harvest right now. It's
the time of year that their husbands are
in the field at 05:30 in the morning.
So day cares don't open till seven or
07:30.
You give them the opportunity to say, hey.
You know,
I'll cover your early morning shift. I'll come
in early. What time can you get here?
And then you're gonna cover the late shift.
So you can come in at 07:30
and stay until
04:30, 05:00.
You'll be our late person this evening.
Giving the opportunity for that sometimes is a
lot more important
to them than
maybe another dollar or 2 on the hour.
They're not gonna drive to Omaha
for a dollar or 2 an hour when
you give them the opportunity for
their children who are in school a block
and a half away
to come over and do their homework in
the cafeteria until they're ready to go home
in the evening,
giving them the opportunity
to be a parent
at the same time
of being able to provide for their family.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I think that that rings
true in in rural areas specifically.
Well, that is actually all I have for
you today, Myra. Thank you so much for
joining us.
Thank you, Franchesca. You have a wonderful day.
Yep. It's been a pleasure speaking with you,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again in the future. Sounds great.
At athena Health, we know your ambulatory practice
wants healthier,
a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier
patients.
But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make
it hard for you and your care teams
to focus on what matters most. That's where
athena Health can help. Our AI native all
in one solutions reduce administrative burdens,
streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights
when clinicians need it most.
That means fewer clicks, more time for patients,
and stronger
lines. Practicing medicine is complex, but running a
practice can be that much simpler with athenahealth.
See how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.