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BUSINESS ADVISOR
may eventually lead to partnerships involving bundled payment contracting and collaborations developed around population health management, which are the alliances that will differentiate your center and
keep it recognized as a relevant provider in your community.
Think outside the box
As the push continues for ways to compensate providers for
more prevention and less intervention, all providers, including your
ASC, should be exploring nontraditional ways to promote wellness
and eliminate unnecessary care. While that is in some ways counterintuitive to your marketing efforts to increase case volume, it's important to recognize that the healthcare landscape is transforming and
reimbursement structures are going through their biggest changes
ever. All providers must begin looking at how they're positioned to
contribute to the health and wellness of the patient population, and
not just continue to be providers of services to the sick or hurting.
As you're waiting for reimbursement models to sort out, brainstorm
ways to be seen as more than just a surgery provider. For many such
initiatives, you should be able to partner with a community provider
who'd welcome the opportunity to work with you on innovative, wellness-focused complementary services to augment your surgery services. Centers specializing in orthopedics and pain management could
use their waiting rooms during off-hours for yoga and Pilates classes.
GI centers could host nutrition seminars at night. All centers could
run meditation classes for patients scheduled for surgery to help with
pain control and to minimize reliance on post-op meds. These types of
activities won't break the bank and can pay off greatly in goodwill by
showing that you embrace your role as not just a vendor of outpatient
surgery services, but also as one of the transformational leaders in the
health of your community.
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | O C T O B E R 2013
