Advancing Surgical Care Podcast

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with ASCA Regulatory Counsel and Director of Government Affairs Kara Newbury about the 2024 outpatient payment and quality reporting rule the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released on November 2, 2023. A highlight of the conversation is their discussion of ASCA’s successful effo...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice and ASCA Director of Education & Clinical Affairs Gina Throneberry discuss the Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (OAS CAHPS) Survey, a postoperative patient survey developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Beginni...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with Deb Yoder, RN, CASC, vice president of clinical operations for Surgical Management Professionals, about the critical steps and considerations involved in constructing and opening a new ASC. Yoder is an accomplished nurse with frontline experience in operating rooms, cardiac catheterizatio...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with orthopedic surgeon and ASCA Board member David Weinstein, MD, about performing outpatient total shoulder surgeries in both hospitals and ASCs. Tens of thousands of patients with commercial insurance undergo safe, effective total shoulder surgeries in ASCs each year, saving themselves and...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice speaks with SCA Health Vice President for Talent Management Vicki Heinz about the importance of creating a culture of inclusion among ASC staff. In a conversation recorded live following Heinz’s presentation on that same topic at ASCA 2023 in Louisville, Kentucky, this past spring, Prentice and Hein...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , Mandy Hawkins, CASC, CAIP, president of the ASCA Board, talks with Debra Stinchcomb, CASC, president of the Board of Ambulatory Surgery Certification (BASC), regarding the Certified Administrator Surgery Center (CASC) credential and the Certified Ambulatory Infection Preventionist (CAIP) credential for ASC administrators and senior staff.  I...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with nimble solutions Chief Executive Officer Nader Samii during a break at ASCA’s annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky, this past May. Prentice invited Samii, whose company was the platinum sponsor of this year’s event, to join him in a discussion about the current market conditions he i...

With the demand for outpatient surgery on the rise, forecasters are concerned about the future supply of physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals. In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Board President Mandy Hawkins talks with David Acosta, MD, the chief diversity and inclusion officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Their wide-ranging co...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , Kara Newbury, ASCA regulatory counsel and director of government affairs, leads a discussion about the Outpatient Surgery Quality and Access Act of 2023 (H.R. 972/S.312) with her colleagues David Opong-Wadee, ASCA manager of legislative and political affairs, and Maia Kunkel, ASCA manager of government affairs. The episode provides a summary...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast, ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice sits down with surgery center payment policy expert Naya Kehayes for an informative discussion about the migration of surgical codes from the inpatient-only list to the list of procedures Medicare will reimburse in hospital outpatient departments (HOPD) and onto the ASC Covered Procedures List (ASC-C...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with ASCA Board Member Lisa Austin, RN, CASC, about succession planning for ASCs. Austin, an ASC development and operations expert, is a member of the ASCA Board of Directors, a past president of the Colorado Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, a registered nurse and a CASC-certified admini...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with HST Pathways Chief Innovation Officer Gavin Fabian about the challenges, and potential solutions, for surgery centers that perform procedures that require the use of medical devices or surgical implants. As ASCA continues its efforts to add additional codes to the outpatient procedure lis...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with ASCA Board President Mandy Hawkins about ASCA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiative. The ASCA Board of Directors approved a resolution supporting this effort at the association’s 2022 annual conference in Dallas, Texas, and work has been underway for several months. Prentice...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast, Bill Prentice, ASCA chief executive officer, and Alex Taira, ASCA regulatory policy and research manager, talk with Jigar Patel, MD, chief medical officer for the for-profit and emerging markets at Oracle Cerner. Their discussion focuses on electronic health records (EHR) in ASCs. Oracle Cerner is a leading supplier of health information tech...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice interviews Andrea Lessner, senior director of perioperative services at USPI’s OASIS Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. The two briefly discuss quality data and patient safety related to the use of robotic-assisted surgeries, then take a deeper dive into the business of robotic surgery in the ASC setting...

In this timely and informative episode of ASCA’s Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice and ASCA Regulatory Counsel and Director of Government Affairs Kara Newbury discuss the updates to the Interpretive Guidelines for ASCs the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released in June. In less than 20 minutes, Bill and Kara provide an overview of the...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with Michael Powers, administrator of Children’s West Surgery Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, about pediatric surgical care in the ASC setting. This highly informative discussion takes place in Dallas, Texas, following Powers’s presentation to attendees at ASCA 2022 and covers a wide range of...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with Michael Patterson, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of Mississippi Valley Health in Davenport, Iowa, and immediate past president of the ASCA Board. During their conversation, Prentice and Patterson discuss total joint replacement (TJR) procedures in ASCs today, projections fo...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with Mary Ryan, RN, BSN, MBA, CASC, CAIP, a senior consultant with Amblitel, about both the regulatory and practical considerations of preparing ASCs for emergency situations ranging from pandemics to natural disasters. This timely conversation took place at the ASCA 2022 Conference & Expo...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with Nader Samii, chief executive officer of National Medical Billing Services (NMBS). NMBS is a longtime ASCA affiliate with a national perspective on the operation and administration of ASCs. Prentice and Samii discuss a range of ASC issues, including lessons learned during the COVID-19 pand...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice is joined by ASCA Assistant Director of Government Affairs Stephen Abresch and ASCA Director of Education and Clinical Affairs Gina Throneberry for a discussion about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ COVID-19 vaccination mandate and quality reporting rules for participating healthca...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , Charlie Leonard of the ASCA public affairs team talks with Carol Stanfill, vice president, US ambulatory surgery centers, at DePuy Synthes, about the outlook for outpatient orthopedic surgery and the expanding use of medical devices, implants, robotics and more.  DePuy Synthes is the orthopedics company of Johnson & Johnson, and Carol St...

In this episode of the Advancing Surgical Care Podcast , ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice talks with Kara Newbury, ASCA regulatory counsel and director of government affairs, and Alex Taira, ASCA regulatory policy and research manager, about the new surprise billing regulations that took effect at the beginning of 2022. The conversation addresses both new prohibitions on certain billing...

ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice is joined by Annie Sariego, the chair of ASCA’s Government Affairs Committee, and Kara Newbury, ASCA regulatory counsel and director of government affairs, for a discussion about the Outpatient Surgery Quality and Access Act of 2021 . This legislation, which was recently introduced in Congress, was developed by several members of the US House and Senate w...

Charlie Leonard of ASCA’s public affairs team talks with Jocelyn Gaddie, chief executive officer, and Hannah Hagan, business development manager, of in2itive Business Solutions about a range of business strategies for ASCs navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including staffing, coding and billing-related matters. in2itive Business Solutions is an ASCA affiliate partner and a full-s...