ASC Plans Upgrade to Surgical Hospital
Hosting 15,000 cases a year wasn't enough to boost the bottom line of the Central Louisiana Ambulatory Surgical Center in Alexandria, La. That's why the 37 surgeons hope that converting the ASC into a surgical hospital will give it the jumpstart it needs.
"We had been a very successful ASC," explains Renick Webb, MD, an otolaryngologist and chairman of the new project, the Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital. But Dr. Webb says that even with a large volume of cases, growth was elusive. A payor mix that included 45 percent Medicare and Medicaid patients didn't help revenues, leading the surgery center's physician-owners to conclude they "weren't going anywhere," says Dr. Webb.
Local neurosurgeons and OB-GYN physicians were looking to get involved with facility ownership, but couldn't bring their complex cases to an outpatient surgery center. They could, however, get behind a surgical hospital project. This helped convince the ASC's physican-owners to take the plunge.
Construction has begun on the new surgical hospital, which will feature 6 more ORs and 46,000 more square feet than its predecessor. It's scheduled to open in July 2010.
"We're going to become a surgical hospital, with all the foibles that go along with it," says Dr. Webb. Louisiana does not have a Certificate of Need law regulating new surgical construction, but surgical hospitals operate under the constant threat that federal legislation will ban surgeons' self-referrals to the facilities and/or prevent them from receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
Dr. Webb says his group is rushing to a structure in place and hoping that the project can be grandfathered into the current legislative landscape. He admits that he and his fellow surgeons are taking sizable risk, but notes that they're jumping in with eyes open and with backup plans in store, including the possibilities of teaming up with a local hospital or enacting a negotiated buyout agreement with a corporate partner. "No one knows what's going to come down," says Dr. Webb, "but we're reading and reacting, and being very proactive."
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