When you’re managing an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) that thrives on efficiency to drive the bottom-line, emergent staffing situations can be a pain in your productivity. Nothing short-circuits your smooth operations and cost-effectiveness like day of service cancellations or staff outages.
Working with a national anesthesia management partner like CarePlus can help ASCs on both fronts.
“Day of service cancellations are a huge drain on the bottom line for ASCs,” says Paul Weir, Senior Vice President of Operations at CarePlus. “Just one case cancellation per day, five days a week, can cost over half a million dollars in lost revenue in a year.” In addition, Weir explains, a lack of control over anesthesia staff is costly for an ASC trying to increase surgical volume by adding block time for new or existing surgeons or extending hours.
As a full-service leader in anesthesia management and recruitment for ASCs nationwide, CarePlus utilizes a wealth of experience to help clients understand and manage these emergent staffing situations:
Service Cancellations
Our experience suggests that a lack of patient understanding can be a factor in driving day of service cancellations. While many ASCs don’t, involving an experienced anesthesia partner in pre-op communications can be an effective step in eliminating day of service cancellations. CarePlus providers help administrative staff in two key areas in the following ways that could otherwise prevent a case from going forward:
- Educating patients about what to expect from anesthesia and addressing any concerns
- Underscoring required preparation steps prior to a procedure — from fasting to cardiac clearances, potential drug interactions to comorbidities that require special treatment.
Staff Outages
Similarly, we offer clients a dose of “preventive medicine” for the headaches they inevitably experience with anesthesia scheduling. ASC administrators often get push-back from hospital-based anesthesia groups, for whom the surgery center is a smaller, side business, as well as from per diem and locum tenens hires, who may not have enough “skin in the game” to provide optimal support. Here is CarePlus’ solution to those dilemmas:
- CarePlus partners with a leading, nationwide anesthesia staffing firm, leveraging a national database categorized by both skill-sets and scheduling preferences. This allows our recruiting team to find the right, highly skilled providers that will thrive in your environment, and act with the same sense of urgency as the rest of your team.
- Our clinical and operational teams work closely with your center and the anesthesia providers to seamlessly adapt as you add case volume or operating hours.
At CarePlus, we take pride in two facts: across 60,000+ cases a year, our anesthesia providers have never missed a day of coverage; and over 97% of our patients rated their anesthesia experience excellent or very good.
Want more control of day of service cancellations and scheduling to remain competitive? Contact CarePlus today.