Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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3 3 J U N E 2 0 1 4 | O U T P AT 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 LEGAL UPDATE tunity to align with an established institution in your community, and to take advantage of its branding, market relationships and access to capital. A health system's leverage in commercial managed care con- tracts often drives these types of deals, since ASCs might then be able to net substantially higher reimbursement rates, provided the arrange- ment has been carefully structured to comply with antitrust laws. Partnering with an ASC management company, on the other hand, lets physicians benefit from the company's superior expertise in oper- ating surgery centers as businesses. The firms tend to have less bureaucracy and leaner administrative structures than health systems, faster decision-making abilities and more flexibility, lower overhead, and specialized billing and collection services. In sum, partnering with both a health system and an ASC manage- ment company lends physicians the clout and skill sets of both, while still letting them retain a large ownership stake in their facility. What's in it for them? In the past, hospital-ASC joint ventures were relatively limited in num- ber, given hospitals' longtime aversion to the ambulatory surgery industry. Now, though, tri-party deals hold advantages for health sys- tems, too. Healthcare reform has led health systems to focus on the impor- tance of scale and the delivery of efficient, cost-effective services, which has made the prospect of aligning with ASC physicians much more appealing than competing with them. Because health systems lack expertise in managing the smaller facil- ities — which run on an entirely different business model than hospi- tals do — a simultaneous partnership with an ASC management com- pany lets the hospital outsource the burden of such administrative services as managing physician relationships, supervising governance, OSE_1406_part1_Layout 1 6/6/14 3:44 PM Page 33