The ASC Value Proposition

"According to Gallup, nearly half of Americans think access to affordable health care is a problem. See how ASCs are part of the solution."

Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) are modern health care facilities that have transformed the outpatient experience for millions of Americans and built a strong track record of quality care and positive patient outcomes.

In fact, for many years, ASCs advocated for a national quality reporting program that would allow them to demonstrate the high quality of care they provide for patients. Since that program’s inception in 2012, more than 98 percent of ASCs have participated each year. When the program released public reports for the first time, the data showed that more than 99 percent of ASCs use Safe Surgery Checklists—an essential tool in maintaining a culture of safety in the operating room. This achievement is just one of many clear indicators of the ASC community’s commitment to meeting the highest standards of care.

Not only are ASCs focused on ensuring that patients have the best surgical experience possible, they also provide cost-effective care that saves the government, third-party payers and patients money. Because ASCs are highly specialized and function on a much smaller scale, they are able to provide services at lower prices than full-service hospitals.

In addition, patients typically pay less coinsurance for procedures performed in the ASC than for comparable procedures in the hospital setting. For example, a Medicare beneficiary could pay as much as $353 in coinsurance for a cataract extraction procedure performed in a hospital outpatient department, whereas that same beneficiary's copayment in the ASC would be only $195.

What the Experts are Saying

Analysis by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare finds that ASCs provide billions of dollars in savings to the Medicare program and its beneficiaries. Specifically, Berkeley’s researchers found that ASCs saved Medicare $7.5 billion over the four-year period from 2008 to 2011. Going forward, ASCs have the potential to save the Medicare system an additional $57.6 billion over the next decade. Read the entire study to find out more. 

A study published in Health Affairs finds that ASCs save money and increase efficiency for Medicare, insurers and patients alike, while providing the same high quality care as HOPDs. The study, conducted by health economists Elizabeth Munnich of the University of Louisville and Stephen Parente of the University of Minnesota, concludes that “ASCs are a high-quality, lower-cost substitute for hospitals as venues for outpatient surgery.” The full study can be read in the May 2014 issue of Health Affairs.