posting prices online and watching patients line up at the door. It was
a dramatic change in business strategy that required an honest assess-
ment of our future clinical and financial goals.
We first had to decide if we could handle an increase in case volume
that the pricing model was expected to bring, based on the success of
the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and other facilities across the coun-
try that have adopted the price transparency model. We knew it'd take
time to build up to the number of self-pay cases Dr. Smith's center
hosts, but we had to enter into this plan with success in mind. Space
was not a problem. We were only running at 40% capacity and had the
room to fill our ORs with extra cases.
Surgeon buy-in is obviously an important consideration, and it was
essential for our physician-owned surgery center. I told our docs that
there would be some investment in technology, and a lot of time and
effort needed to get the program off the ground. The big selling point:
I promised them self-paying patients, and if they'd tell me how much
they wanted to get paid for the surgeries they perform, they'd have a
check waiting for them on the day of surgery. That certainly got their
attention.
Improving the way our facility communicated and connected with
patients were other huge priorities. We had to upgrade our website in
order to present online pricing options in an intuitive and interactive
format, so patients could locate a price for surgery in just 2 or 3
clicks. We felt that they'd lose interest if they had to dig too deep or
navigate through too many tabs.
An outsourcing firm helped with the website's redesign, which
required an investment in the tens of thousands of dollars. That's a
significant amount, and it's growing as we increase the number of pro-
cedures for which we post prices from 72 to our target of 200, but
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