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Ophthalmology Management

Article

Help Desk

Ophthalmology Management November 1, 2006

practice management help desk
Information on ASC Operation

In recent years, more and more ophthalmology practices have come to rely on their ownership interest in an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) for a significant percentage of practice income. At the same time, the state and federal regulations governing such key areas of ASC operation as credentialing, reimbursement and the list of procedures that can be performed in an ASC have evolved into a crazy-quilt patchwork that show little uniformity and that few physicians can comprehend.

The result is that owners of existing ASCs continue to operate with a high degree of uncertainty, while practices interested in opening a new surgery center can do little in the way of projecting future costs and revenue.

Complicating the picture even further is the recent proposal by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to create new reimbursement schedules and approved procedure lists for ASCs that are intended to go into effect in January 2008. While ASC operators have long called for CMS to provide firm standards they can use for future planning, the terms of the proposal fall far short of the expectations of the American Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers (AAASC) and have sparked a major AAASC effort to modify the proposed new regulations. For example, the CMS proposal calls for ASC reimbursement to be pegged at 62% of the payment allowed for the same procedure performed in a hospital outpatient department. The AAASC had requested that the reimbursement percentage be pegged at 75%.

Given the highly charged atmosphere that now prevails, the AAASC Web site at www.aaasc.org provides a wealth of easily accessible information on all areas of ASC advocacy, including the details of the CMS proposal, current AAASC initiatives on behalf of ASC owners and information on getting involved in ASC issues at the state level. At the operational level, the AAASC Web site serves as an informational resource to help ASC owners and administrators achieve such critical goals as consistent quality care, cost-effective operation and optimizing reimbursement through correct coding. Much of this information comes from surveys and benchmarking studies that are free to AAASC members.

If you know of an organization, Web site or other resource that is devoted to healthcare practice improvement, please let us know. Contact Rachel Renshaw at: renshawr@lwwvisioncare.com or (215) 643-8136.

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