It's been a challenging year for Ambulatory Surgery Centers. The unprecedented spread of a new virus, financial woes for patients, and continuing changes in how insurance companies treat ASCs for outpatient surgery have all had their impact. Moving into 2021, the success of any ASC hinges on preserving patient safety and satisfaction.  

There were several unexpected issues in 2020 that have impacted the health care industry, and Ambulatory Surgery Centers in particular, in profound ways. If ASCs were paying attention, they have learned some valuable lessons to apply to the coming year to ensure they continue to operate smoothly.

Let's face it- staff at ambulatory surgery centers often haven't been trained in marketing their facility. They're medical professionals, not marketing gurus! Every facility wants a full OR to bring in as much revenue and as many patients as possible, but it's tricky to do this without insight on marketing. Our very own Marketing Director, Melissa Gall, outlined a few steps to follow to better market your facility and keep your OR full.

Take a look at this video blog from when Medical Passport visited Hunterdon Center for Surgery to hear all about their successes with our solutions. 

In some regions, the COVID-19 curve is successfully flattening, and we are getting closer and closer to restarting elective surgeries. Already, administrators should be evaluating the backlog of missed operations and re-prioritizing how to proceed when they get the sign-off to re-open. How has COVID-19 changed the landscape of outpatient surgery?

In these dark days of closed facilities and furloughed/terminated staff, it is easy to get caught up in how unfair, unforeseen, and terribly depressing this situation has been for ambulatory surgery centers and the world.  

We live in a hyper-partisan, hyper-sensitive, hyper-litigious society. We are also addicted to our social media. The two can be an explosive combination.

We understand that these times continue to make life feel stressful and heavy. We are all affected in different capacities; some are working more, some from home, others are dealing with the stress of not working at all. Some of us live in the states that are considered 'hot-spots' and others are in an area with only a few cases of COVID-19. Some have cancelled major life events, missed out on our big plans, and some have even had to say goodbye to family members and friends.

We haven't lost sight of you. The healthcare field consists of real-life superheroes and our job here at 1MP is to help you through these uncharted waters in any way that we can. No matter how much or how little you feel affected by this, we want to remind you just how appreciated you are each and every day.

We will get through this together and we vow to have your back even after this storm has passed.

As frightening as the news is right now - it will pass. Our healthcare industry will be smarter and stronger from what we are learning today from this crisis. On the other side of this nightmare our hospitals will be more focused on greater healthcare challenges such as intensive care, organ transplants, and acute care management. Surgery centers will rapidly expand and multiply as we realize that elective and routine outpatient surgery does not belong in acute care facilities.
More individuals will choose healthcare as a profession, impressed by the inspiration of our first responders, our nurses, our physicians, our intake personnel. Our healthcare supply chains will not be dependent upon countries outside of the US to maintain adequate par levels of needed supplies. Our strength shall come from within. Thank everyone of you for the job you are doing! It may get darker before the light - but the light will come...