An office-based surgical suite has a lot of benefits. Here are the main benefits to the patient and to you as the physician.
Patient benefits
Convenience and comfort: Your patients are already used to coming to your office, seeing the same staff, and the same environment so they’re used to it. They’re less nervous.
Huge out-of-pocket savings if you perform surgeries at your office-based surgical suite. I’m not talking about a billing facility fee or anything like that; you just bill straight, simple. Just like surgical procedures, you would bill at the surgical center or hospitals. You don’t need JCAHO or AAAHC certification or anything like that. Just like you perform P&A at your office, you’re performing other foot and ankle procedures at your office.
Less chance of hospital infection because you’re not taking your patients to the hospital.
Physician benefits
What about physicians? You have your own benefits too.
Greater Rewards: Insurance companies, including Medicare, reward you typically 20% more than hospitals or surgical centers for the same procedures. Insurance companies and government know you are saving them a lot of money, so why not reward you?
Huge saving of your time: Time is your most invaluable asset. You don’t have to commute to the hospital or surgery center. You don’t have to worry about traffic. You don’t have to worry about your own turns for your procedure since you do everything at your own office.
You are making yourself future proof. What does that mean? Value-based healthcare – MACRA and MIPS – is being implemented.
As you can see in this graph, we’re in a transition period. Once that data gets collected, they’re going to start rewarding or punishing, depending on your performance. What do they see? They see who saves the government or insurance company the most money. Because, it’s not going to be fee-for-service, it’s going to be value based. If you save them more money, you will be rewarded if you continue to choose to be in that network.
The most beautiful thing about the office-based surgical suite is that not many doctors have it. So you still have a unique positioning if you can market to your patient clientele in your community that you offer office-based surgery. You obviously get more attention because patients will prefer this.
There will be consequences
There was an article in social media about a patient who came out and was so upset and angry, frustrated, scared. She underwent some kind of shoulder and foot procedure and then she stayed at the hospital for a few days. She showed the bill on the article. It was $120,000 or something. The hospital charged $15,000 for “four little screws for foot surgery”. We’re talking about huge, huge costs for an individual patient.
Think about your own office-based surgical suite. Patients don’t have to worry about these types of consequences. How strong you will be? That’s why I’m a big proponent of the office-based surgical suite.
How to get started with Office-based Surgery
It’s not that difficult. You have to basically find a room, get the equipment, train your staff and get the documentation prepared. You may have to review training for staff: how to gown and glove, how to set up instruments, etc. Again, those are not difficult but you need to know the right sequence and the right system.
If you need help setting up an OBS or learning MIFAS please don’t hesitate to book a free strategy session with me and my team – Click here to book a time.
-TJ Ahn
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