The future of the ambulatory surgery centers and acuity levels

Offering the one-two punch of cost savings and convenience, ASCs are increasingly becoming the venue of choice for both physicians and patients.

Few would argue that the healthcare landscape is rapidly evolving. Today’s healthcare consumer has become far more engaged, not only demanding a greater level of personalization and convenience in their healthcare experience, but also seeking greater transparency in areas such as network coverage and medical costs. These changing patient expectations, coupled with advances in medical technology, have created a paradigm shift in healthcare delivery that is taking emergent care and surgical procedures beyond hospital walls and into outpatient facilities such as freestanding emergency departments (FSEDs) and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Offering the one-two punch of cost savings and convenience, ASCs are increasingly becoming the venue of choice for both physicians and patients because of their ability to perform increasingly complex surgeries thanks to improved anesthetic techniques and less invasive surgical procedures—services that typically come with a much higher price tag when performed in a hospital setting.

Given this market trend, it is quite feasible that ASCs will be receiving a greater number of high-acuity patients in the future. In fact, recent legislation in Florida proposed that ASCs should be able to keep patients for at least 24 hours, and then allow them to stay up to 72 hours in a post-surgical Recovery Care Center (RCC), while Arizona, Connecticut and Illinois have all established licensing standards for RCCs. If this trend continues, it will open the door to an entirely new type of outpatient facility where an ASC can take on more complex and varied types of surgeries.

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