Are You Ready to Open Your First Surgery Center?

Learning how to open a surgery center comes down to securing capital, identifying geographic service gaps, ensuring regulatory compliance, and implementing specialized technology. For physicians looking to take control of their business operations and grow their practice, launching an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) offers a practical path to clinical and financial independence.

Owning a surgical center can create a much more favorable environment for you and your patients. ASCs offer a comfortable, predictable patient experience by cutting out the stressful atmosphere and billing surprises often associated with hospital visits.

The benefits of opening a surgical center

A surgery center lets you focus entirely on your specialty without hospital bureaucracy getting in the way. By building an ASC around a specialized list of procedures, your practice can offset startup and operational costs while efficiently capturing the revenue you’ve already earned.

Keep in mind that sole ownership requires you to manage day-to-day operations. Before making the leap, prepare your current practice by automating routine administrative tasks and bringing your revenue cycles under control. The financial and operational rewards are highly compelling for those who put in the prep work. In fact, up to 90% of surgery centers have some level of physician ownership, with 65% owned solely by physicians.

Limiting healthcare costs for everyone

An ASC can limit healthcare costs for patients because it operates at a much lower cost to serve than a hospital. A specialized scope of procedures keeps your capital expenses in check by making equipment investments highly targeted. Privatizing your procedure offerings also means you typically carry lower amounts of unpaid billing because you can thoroughly vet your patients and their payers upfront.

When you run an outpatient surgery center, you significantly reduce the overhead required to care for patients. This creates meaningful cost efficiencies that lower expenses for you, for your patients, and for Medicare. For example, hospitals charge commercial insurers about 55% more than ASCs in facility fees for common colonoscopy procedures, even when both are in the same county and contract with the same insurer.

How to find your ASC’s market fit

For your surgical center to succeed, you need to find the right market fit. This means aligning your service offerings with current or future community demand.

Endoscopy and ophthalmology are the most prevalent specialties for Medicare-certified surgery centers, making up more than 50% combined. Orthopedics and plastic surgery centers quickly follow.

Finding your ideal market fit often comes down to filling geographic gaps, offering competitive alternatives to other centers in your region, or attracting underserved populations. If you happen to be first to market in your specific specialty, you gain a massive advantage in building awareness and capturing a larger share of the local demand.

Building strong relationships and teams

To hit your growth targets, you need to develop a solid network of relationships early in your development phase. You will need:

• Healthcare providers and administrators to staff the ASC and build an appealing company culture.
• Vendors to provide the tools, equipment, and solutions for your day-to-day operations.
• Third-party management companies to help tackle compliance, marketing, and legal advice.

Team-building is a challenge at any medical practice, but it’s especially critical when starting from scratch. By bringing in third-party management firms, you can ease parts of your operational workload and navigate complex legal challenges. These vendors can also assist with navigating tricky insurance and payer agreements.

Essential software to run your ASC

To support your staff and keep your new center running efficiently, you need to provide them with the right tools on day one. You can ease the demands on their time by relying on a complete, integrated software suite.

Solutions like ModMed^® ASC help your staff stay in control of the workday by keeping clinical, operational, and financial tasks in one centralized place. By implementing ModMed ASC software, you can connect your practice management system directly with your EMA^® EHR, allowing patient records to flow smoothly between systems and helping reduce double data entry across your facility.

Tracking your ambulatory surgery center’s growth

Advance your ambulatory surgery center by keeping a close eye on practice benchmarks and performance analytics. Having a centralized dashboard makes it easier for you to pull reports and data visualizations related to payment reimbursements, clinical data, staff productivity, and other internal metrics.

By regularly analyzing your practice growth metrics, you can quickly adapt to patient needs and identify areas to optimize your operational workflows as your ASC establishes its footprint in the community.

Ready to build a more efficient surgery center? Book a demo to discover how ModMed ASC can support your practice goals.

FAQs

What does it take to open an ambulatory surgery center?

Opening an ASC requires securing capital financing, finding appropriate real estate, obtaining state licensing and Medicare certification, hiring specialized clinical staff, and implementing integrated EHR and practice management software to handle daily operations.

How much less does a procedure cost in an ASC compared to a hospital?

Procedures performed in an ASC are generally much more cost-effective due to lower overhead. For example, hospitals charge commercial insurers about 55% more than ASCs in facility fees for common colonoscopy procedures, even when both are in the same county and contract with the same insurer.

Which specialties are most common in physician-owned surgery centers?

The most prevalent specialties for Medicare-certified surgery centers are endoscopy and ophthalmology. Orthopedics and plastic surgery are also common ASC specialties.

What software does a new ambulatory surgery center need on day one?

On day one, an ASC needs a comprehensive software suite that includes a specialty-specific EHR, a robust practice management system for scheduling and billing, and analytics tools to track financial performance and compliance.

This blog is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice. Please consult with your legal counsel and other qualified advisors to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and standards.