The ASC market has demonstrated steady growth over the last several years, and it is projected to continue its expansion throughout the next decade.
ASCs now perform more than half of all outpatient surgical procedures in the United States. According to recent analyses, ASC surgery volume is expected to increase by 15% by 2028 and 25% by 2032.
ASCs are increasingly in demand, not in small part because they provide convenient, cost-effective, and patient-centered surgical options in an outpatient setting. The migration of surgeries from hospitals to ASCs had already begun before the pandemic, and this trend has continued to build momentum.
Why Anesthesia Is a Growth Factor for ASCs
For ASCs that are focused on growth — whether adding new specialties and cases in existing centers or expanding into new centers — improving operational efficiency is a necessity. Successful scaling is achieved when you can increase revenue while reducing or maintaining current expenses.
Anesthesia is one critical area that can limit an ASC’s growth potential. A lack of flexible, reliable anesthesia options can stand in the way of your expansion goals. If you are striving to make clinical, operational, and financial improvements in all of your centers as you scale, consider outsourcing anesthesia management and staffing.
Advantages of Outsourced Anesthesia Services
Building a partnership with an expert anesthesia provider is beneficial, whether you need part-time, full-time, temporary, or permanent support. At CarePlus, we staff more than 100,000 cases a year, and we know how to help ASCs build case volume capacity, enhance patient satisfaction, and improve billing and revenue cycle efficiency. Here are two key benefits of outsourcing anesthesia while scaling:
- Solving staffing challenges
For many ASCs, staffing shortages have been exacerbated throughout different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff turnover, layoffs, furloughs, and absences due to illness or family obligations can prevent centers from taking on more patients and scheduling more surgeries.
Working with an anesthesia partner gives you access to a fully customizable staffing solution. Need a last-minute substitute when a provider cancels? Looking for someone to work a few hours or half-days each week to keep up with increased demand? We have a customizable solution ready to implement. CarePlus partnered with Radar Healthcare Providers, a national anesthesia recruiting leader with a database of more than 80,000 anesthesia providers, to maximize our ability to meet the needs of growing ASCs.
- Implementing clear, patient-centric billing
Transparency in billing benefits everyone: patients, providers, and centers. But billing processes are often confusing and stressful for patients, which leads to delayed payments, wasted administrative time, and an inefficient revenue cycle. Anesthesia billing is notoriously complex, but a patient-centric billing process incorporates patient education, providing comprehensive information and answering questions before a procedure.
We work with ASCs to establish an operational structure that captures lost revenue and minimizes claim denials, outstanding claims, and underpaid claims. Our team integrates quality control measures and the latest technology into each step of the claims process to increase efficiency and cost savings — allowing centers to focus on other priorities as they scale.
Interested in learning more about the benefits of outsourcing anesthesia? Contact CarePlus.