ASCA 1st Annual Conference – San Antonio, TX

With over 2800 people in attendance this year, Kathy Bryant, President, kicked off the 1st annual industry conference for Ambulatory Surgery Center Association in San Antonio, Texas this morning. She updated everyone on the industry’s successes. Over $22 million healthcare dollars are spent in the ASC environment (versus hospital outpatient setting). There are 5,010 Medicare ASC in existence in all 50 states with GI representing 35%, ophthalmic 31%, Pain 17% and Orthopedics 7% of Medicare procedures. These facts strongly indicate that “ASCs are not niche providers”. In fact, according to Bryant, “ASCs are an integral part of the developing healthcare industry.”

According to Bryant, ASCs are instrumental in lowering healthcare costs, in addition to paying taxes, providing jobs, providing care to those who can’t afford healthcare and participating in community projects.

However, ASCs do not enjoy the political clout that hospitals do. Bryant strongly encouraged everyone, particularly surgeons, to become much more involved with convincing Washington DC that ASC are their best answer to lowering healthcare costs. This is a must for the future success of the ASC industry.