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. Methods of evaluating robotic equipment, educating and training surgical teams and introducing and ramping up a robotics program in an ASC are addressed. The conversation takes place following Lessner’s presentation at the ASCA 2022 Conference & Expo in Dallas, Texas.

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 updates and explain several key components, including revisions to the periodic written notice requirements for ASCs, informed consent requirements for ASC patients and the Infection Control Surveyor Worksheet.

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 clinical and operational issues. Topics Powers and Prentice consider include protocols for creating a child- and family-friendly clinical environment, the most common procedures performed for young children, strategies for successfully negotiating reimbursement rates and present and future trends in pediatric outpatient surgery. 

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 for the future, the growing body of quality data for TJR procedures in ASCs, the acquisition and deployment of robotic devices in ASCs and the future potential for more inpatient-only procedures to migrate to the ASC setting.

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 Dallas, Texas, following a session about emergency preparedness Ryan presented there.

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 pandemic, price transparency across healthcare settings and the ASCA 2022 Conference & Expo convening in person in Dallas, Texas, April 27–30.

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 healthcare workers, including those affiliated with ASCs.

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 Stanfill leads the company’s ASC capabilities team nationwide, giving her a distinct perspective on both current market conditions as well as the continued migration of orthopedic procedures to the outpatient setting.

This episode was recorded in late December 2021.

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 practices as well as new requirements for good faith cost estimates for certain patients. ASC administrators will want to listen to this short, informative program to learn how to stay current and compliant with this new, consequential law.

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 with the help and cooperation of ASCA. It is intended to improve the patient experience, lower the cost of outpatient surgeries and keep ASCs competitive with other sites of care.