joint venture. Each hospital has a 17% ownership interest totaling 51%,
and a group of physicians owns 49%. (Before the merger, Skyline was
70% physician-owned while Bingham Hospital held 30%.)
In opening our doors to Portneuf and Mountain View, they, too, can
enjoy the convenience and comfort of an ASC, as well as its bargain-
ing power. Now that Portneuf has an ASC in its system, the 205-bed
hospital can contract with insurers that want a low-cost alternative to
hospitals for surgical care.
Economies of scale
The joint venture will give everyone in our community within a 100-
mile radius — from Jackson Hole, Wyo., to Twin Falls, Idaho, and
down to the Utah border — access to cost-effective same-day surgery.
We get calls every day about rising deductibles and co-pays. People are
shopping for a less expensive alternative, and rightly so. We all know
surgery at an ASC costs considerably less than at a hospital.
Our surgery center will benefit as well: more cases, more surgeons,
more specialties.
• More cases. Our multi-specialty center has 3 ORs and 1 procedure
room. In 2018, we performed 4,188 cases — 2,700 surgeries and 1,488
pain management procedures. We expect our new partnership will
add 200-plus cases a month. Our facility has plenty of space to
expand. We plan to add another OR and possibly an endoscopy suite.
• More surgeons. Just as we give surgeons access to our facility,
the partnership will give our facility access to surgeons. Before the
alliance, we couldn't offer endoscopies, upper GI and colonoscopies
because we didn't have a gastroenterologist who was not affiliated
with our competitors. Now that we do, we'll add a new line of gas-
troenterology services. The same goes for urology.
For physicians, a shared site of care means efficiency. Doctors can
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