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Hello. This is Francesca Matthews with the Becker's

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ASC review podcast.

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I'm thrilled to be joined today by Thomas

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Hutchinson,

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administrator of the Surgery Center of Central Florida.

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Thank you so much for being here today.

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Yeah. Thanks for having me.

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Absolutely.

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To start us off here, could you please

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introduce yourself and tell us a little bit

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about your background?

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Yeah. So my name is Tom Hutchinson.

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I work at Surgery Center of Central Florida

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here in Ocala, Florida.

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I've been here for almost four years. I've

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been with the company,

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about the same time frame.

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I actually came from,

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Open Heart, CVOR,

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in the hospital, did a, a short stint

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in the cath lab,

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and then came over to the cardiology practice.

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I was the radiology manager for a little

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while,

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and then the director of the ASC left,

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and I took over from there.

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Right. Excellent. Excited to to get to the

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discussion today.

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To kinda start broadly, what are the top

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three trends that you're following in health care

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and ASCs today?

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Well,

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I mean, we're, we're primarily a cardiology,

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ASC. So one of the big trends that

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everybody in cardiology or has anything to do

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with cardiology is looking at for ASCs is,

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EP ablations.

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That's that's probably our number one,

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topic right now

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in our industry.

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I think one of the other kinda nerve

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wracking ones is the the government shutdown and

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how that might affect us,

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waiting for the new, Medicare rules to come

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out.

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And then third, I think a lot of

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people, are are struggling with the the trend

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of staffing,

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trying to compete with hospitals and and, you

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know, get good staff in the doors and

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keep good staff.

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Mhmm. And that that keeping good staff component,

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I know, is is really crucial there.

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And then, yeah, also, you know, we're we're

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also waiting to see what else CMS says

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over here at Becker's,

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since a few of those rules haven't been

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released yet. But what are you most excited

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about right now in health care, ASCs, cardiology,

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all of it?

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BEP ablations. That's a big one. We've been

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pushing for that for a while. We,

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we're trying to contract with private payers, and

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our practice has just kinda struggled with it.

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I know there are some other ones that,

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that have had a little more success on

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that side of it.

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I know, like, in Arizona, there's a couple

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places that got, like, the hospital without walls

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during COVID, and they were able to hold

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on to it. And and,

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Alaska has kind of been able to do

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it, I think, just more so because of

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their

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ruralness,

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you would say.

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But,

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that's at least that's the impression I get.

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But, yeah, so with Medicare being able to

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allow us to do those ablations in the

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in the outpatient setting, I think that's a

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huge advantage to our cardiology patients and,

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and it will take some of the workload

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off the hospital a little bit.

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Yeah. Definitely. I've definitely heard similar things from

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other, like, outpatient cardiology leaders that that we

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talk to every every day over here at

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Becker's.

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So, yeah, definitely just, like, echo that sentiment.

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How are you thinking about growth over the

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next twelve months?

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Well,

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we've actually added a couple physicians to our

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practice,

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here in the ASC, and we're also looking

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at adding maybe a couple locums.

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We're looking at, you know, bringing some vascular

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surgery into our ASC, so that'll be something

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new for us.

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We are

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looking at a couple

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couple procedures that require vascular surgeons. We don't

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have any right now, so we'll have to

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we're looking at locums for that.

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And then, of course, with the EP stuff,

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you know, we wanna do as much business

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as we can in that space,

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so we're looking at possibly bringing on locums

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EP also.

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Physical growth, we're actually

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our ASC is we have three operating rooms,

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and we only have eight pre and post

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op bays. And, we're we're looking to add

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on to our pre and post op. So

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our our growth there,

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physically, we need to grow heart building, and

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we're gonna add on another 10 patient bays

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for pre and post op.

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Awesome. That's exciting. I you kinda have touched

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on this already, but just wanted to follow-up

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a little bit here just because you're in

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a pretty unique position given,

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you know, the newness of some of these

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procedures in the outpatient setting and being in

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a kind of position of growth. I'm curious

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if you were talking to, which, you know,

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we kind of are, to another cardiology ASC

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leader who's or even just an ASC leader

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looking to maybe add some of these services.

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What would you say is, like, the most

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important thing

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to kinda look at first before adding some

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of these procedures and services?

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I mean, I think your pro form a

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on, you know, device cost,

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what what the vendors are gonna charge you

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for, you know, capital equipment, the disposables, all

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that stuff. I mean, you got the I

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think the biggest thing all of us are

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facing right now, even us, we kinda took

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a leap of faith, and and we're prepared

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for it for January 1, but we still

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don't have any hard numbers what Medicare is

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gonna reimburse us on these EP ablations.

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So to add this whole service line,

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we're

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we're going off of projections.

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But I think the biggest thing is to

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know

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where you stand, what what your capital costs

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are gonna be, your disposable costs, your staff

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costs, your fixed costs,

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and and just do a good in-depth pro

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form a.

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So you have the

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you know

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you you only have one variable, the reimbursement

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right now.

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Mhmm. Mhmm. That makes sense for sure.

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Yeah. I don't have anything else for you

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today, actually, Thomas. So thank you so much

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for joining us.

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Yeah. Thank you. Glad to be here. Yeah.

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Yeah. It's been a pleasure speaking with you,

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and I look forward to connecting with you

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again in the future.

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Yep. I look forward to it. Thank you.

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Yep. Thank you. Have a good rest of

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your day. Alright. You too.