This Week in Surgery Centers

Tina Piotrowski is the CEO of Copper Ridge Surgery Center. A few weeks ago, at ASCA, Tina joined HST’s session as a panelist alongside Dr. David Shapiro and Nick Latz to discuss How to Prepare for and Navigate Board-Level Conversations. The session was very well received, so much so that we had a bunch of questions that we couldn’t get to because we ran out of time. Tina has been gracious enough t...

Kate Perlstrom is the Director of Surgical Services at Providence Mission Surgery Center, and she’s on today to share her essential guide to board meeting agendas. This will be the second episode focused on making your board meetings as effective as possible, and having a repeatable agenda is critical to doing so. Kate shares her 9-part agenda, tips for holding successful meetings, and common mist...

For the month of April, we will focus our guest discussions on quarterly board meetings. Benita Tapia is the Administrator and Director of Nursing at 90210 Surgery Medical Center in Beverly Hills, CA, and she joins us for our first episode of the series to talk about how you can simplify your quarterly board meetings by meeting with your financial committee a week in advance. Benita oversees four...

Monica Daniel is the Principal & Founder of Axiom Integrated Services and has been consulting and helping ASCs for over 25 years. Over the last few years, Monica has seen an increase in interest and the development of OBLs (office-based labs) and that’s what we’re diving into today. We’re covering the differences between an ASC, an OBL, and a hybrid facility, the key factors to consider when c...

At the end of every podcast episode, we always ask our guests, “What is one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their surgery centers?” For this week’s episode, we compiled the most recent responses we’ve had, bringing together the best advice from seven different ASC leaders. We hope everyone enjoys this round-up of practical, innovative ideas. A huge thank you to our featured guests,...

Scott Bacon is the Vice President of Business Development at Compass Surgical Partners, and he’s here to cover how you can successfully convert an HOPD into an ASC. The switch has many benefits, such as market growth, reimbursement differences, physician retention, and high-acuity case migration. Scott will also share how to get started, what pitfalls to avoid, and how to evaluate whether a conver...

One of our favorite returning guests, Maura Cash, is here today to talk about OAS-CAHPS. There is a ton of OAS-CAHPS coverage right now across the industry, given the 2025 mandated deadline, but we'll cover a new angle with Maura: how you can proactively improve your scores before they become public by properly training your staff. After my conversation with Maura, we'll switch to our Data & I...

John Brock is the Co-Founder, President, and COO of SurgNet Health Partners, and he joins us this week to talk through The Blueprint for Building an ASC Management Group. John takes us through the whole process, starting with market analysis and securing funding, all the way through operating at peak efficiency, managing metrics, and emerging trends to consider. In our news recap, we’ll cover the...

David Thawley is the CEO of HST Pathways, and he is on the podcast today to talk about the idea of proactive operations, detailing how, by building a culture of proactive operations, your surgery center will be able to thrive in this new world for ASCs. Running a surgery center is different from what it was ten years ago or even five years ago, so pivoting to efficient, data-driven, proactive oper...

In this episode, we will dive into nine noteworthy news stories that have been making waves in the ever-evolving surgery center industry. We’ll bounce between industry trends, clinical trends, articles looking back at 2023, and articles looking ahead to what 2024 will bring. Here’s what we’ll cover: Ozempic could be good for orthopedic surgeons Medicare Introduces New ASC Procedure Request Process...

Running a surgery center is extremely challenging, and one element that adds to the challenge is collecting, aggregating, and reporting on quality measures. While there are many measures to stay on top of, Kathy Wilson, the Executive Director at the ASC Quality Collaboration, is on today to talk about the measure “Wrong Site, Wrong Side, Wrong Patient, Wrong Procedure, Wrong Implant.” A few weeks...

Marsha Diamond is the Director of Coding Solutions at Aideo Technologies, and we had the opportunity to talk with her about how AI can be used to reduce payor denials. There is a ton of AI talk going on, and it can feel overwhelming trying to understand what it is and how it can be woven into our lives, but Marsha did a great job breaking it down for us. We covered how AI can be used to avoid the...

BJ DiMartini is the CEO of Excel Health, and he has been working hard to open new surgery centers in Hawaii and Washington. But BJ and his team are doing things a little differently – they are building their facilities with a true concierge approach and leaning into the growing trend around medical tourism. BJ shared the specialties they will offer, how he’s sourcing physicians and attracting pati...

At the end of every podcast episode, we always ask our guests, "What is one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their surgery centers?" For this week’s episode, we compiled the most recent responses we’ve had, bringing together the best advice from 11 different ASC leaders. We hope everyone enjoys this round-up of practical, innovative ideas. A huge thank you to our featured guests, in...

Every ASC is required to hold a quarterly board meeting in order to stay in compliance and remain accredited. Nader Samii, CEO of nimble, is on today to talk through how you can make those meetings as impactful, productive, and engaging as possible. He walks through how to properly prepare, the essential financial metrics you should always include, how to get ahead of potential surprises, and a bu...

Hilary Sondik is the Executive Vice President of Operations at Surgical Notes, and today we are doing a deep dive into the key revenue cycle management (RCM) reports that every ASC should be tracking in 2024. We’ll break it down by frequency, so we’ll lay out what reports you should be running daily, weekly, monthly, and annually, and then Hilary will spend some time sharing the positive impacts y...

Kara Newbury is the Director of Government Affairs and Regulatory Counsel at ASCA, and we had the chance to chat with her about CMS’ recently released 2024 Final Payment Rule. We covered reimbursement rates, updates to the ASC Covered Procedures List, quality reporting changes, OAS-CAHPS, and other essential details all ASCs should know. In our news recap, we’ll cover five moves that shook up the...

Joan Dentler is the Founder of Avanza Healthcare Strategies, and she joins our host, Nick Latz, this week to dive into their 5th Annual Hospital Leadership ASC Survey. Nick and Joan discuss the survey results, including key conclusions and trends around ASC ownership, hospitals and health systems’ growing interest in ASCs, what equity breakouts look like, where third-party management companies com...

Mike Tompkins is a Client Services Manager at in2itive, and we had a chance to talk through the intricate world of payment posting in ASCs, mainly focusing on commercial payers. If this is still a manual process for you and you are spending time reconciling payments on the backend of your billing system, then you’ll learn a lot in this episode about how automating those processes can improve the a...

When most people think about clinical operations, they typically focus on the few hours the patient is at your ASC for their procedure. Katie Sypher is a Senior Consultant at LeftCoast Healthcare Advisors, and she’s here today to talk about how clinical operations actually begin long before the patient’s date of service, starting with patient education and ending with post-surgical follow-up. ASCs...

Last week, we held a live, online event with Will Evans. Will is the Senior Director, Data Science and Insights here at HST Pathways, and we spent an hour reviewing 10 of the most compelling clinical and financial industry benchmarks from HST’s latest State of The Industry report. If you haven’t seen it, we released a State of the Industry report in late September, and it includes best practices,...

As a first-generation American, small business owner, healthcare expert, and army veteran with extensive criminal law experience, Austin Cheng has an impressive and extensive resume. What does Austin plan to do next with this experience? Run for New York’s 3rd Congressional District. Austin Cheng is currently the CEO of Gramercy Surgery Center in New York. We had the opportunity to sit down with A...

Today is the final episode in our 9-part De Novo series! Last but certainly not least, Greg DeConciliis joins us again to discuss Continuous Improvement. You have officially opened your doors, and you can certainly celebrate, but what you cannot do is become complacent. So, Greg walks us through keeping physician and patient satisfaction high, the role of data and benchmarking, how to cultivate an...

We are in the homestretch of our 9-part De Novo series! James McClung joins us this week for part #8 to take us through what you should do when you are 30 days from your first patient. We’ll review final regulatory and compliance checks, necessary equipment, technology, supplies, and contingency plans and cover how to prepare your clinical and administrative teams. In our news recap, we’ll cover t...

Wil Schlaff joins us this week as we continue our series of episodes dedicated to De Novos. Wil is an ASC Development and Operations Specialist, so he has seen it all, and today, we’re focusing on preparing the business side of the house for your new surgery center. We cover capital investments, vendor contracts, finding the best scheduling and billing software, handling HR functions, and everythi...