FEATURE


While the official program is new, Seaside has allowed patients to pay for their care up-front since its open- ing two years ago with an average of around a dozen patients taking advan- tage of that offer annually, says Admin- istrator Cindy Schuetz, RN.


“These are patients who may


have an insurance plan that carries a high deductible,” she says. “We also have patients who choose not to have insurance because they are paying for concierge care instead. Our ASC would receive regular phone calls from our physicians’ offices asking about cash-pay prices for patients, so we would go through the process of determining the rate. After doing this repeatedly, we decided it made sense to publicize prices.”


Schuetz says Seaside is the only ASC in the area performing outpa- tient total joint replacements. “This is a differentiator for our facility, which is why the program launched with those procedures. These were also the surgeries for which patients most fre- quently asked about a cash price.” To


offer a cash-pay option,


Schuetz says it is critical to communi- cate with all the service providers you need covered by the fee. “You must get their buy-in into the program and learn the amount they expect to earn from each procedure.” Take the time to learn your costs, Peterson says. “We determined our prices carefully. We reviewed our expenditures for each surgical case, then we took the average of what it costs us to perform each case and pub- lished that price.”


Another vital component is consis-


tency, Parikh says. “You need to work with trustworthy surgeons who are reli- able and predictable with their surgical approaches. If surgeons vary greatly in how they perform procedures, it becomes much more difficult to deter- mine a single, appropriate price.”


We believe that a decision to have surgery is much easier when you know how much it will truly cost. Publishing our prices helps patients and employers be fiscally responsible with their health care dollars.”


— Michele Peterson, RN Pacific Surgical Center


Expanding the Offerings Over the past five years, Parikh says, patients from throughout the world have taken advantage of Northwest ENT’s cash-pay program. About 25 per- cent of all cash-pay patients come from outside Georgia. “Patients traveled to us from as far away as China and South- east Asia. We have had several Euro- pean patients and many patients from the Caribbean islands. It helps that we are located near Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. When people think of medical tourism, they tend to envision


people leaving the United States. We are doing the reverse.” To help build local awareness of Northwest ENT’s offering, the ASC provides referring physicians with a brochure describing the program, Parikh says. The surgery center also is looking at opening another ASC in the area. “This would allow us to expand the model to cover a larger local geo- graphic area. When you can control all the surgical variables, this model can be easily replicated.”


Schuetz says there are plans to list other procedures on the Seaside web- site in the future. “If we find our pro- gram is successful and starts attracting people from outside of our area, we are considering providing services to help arrange their visit.” Pacific Surgical Center is using social media to market its program, Peterson says, and has listed its cash- pay prices on the Free Medical Market Association website, www.fmma.org. “As we continue to work with and edu- cate patients, employers and third-party administrators about our program, we hope to expand our available proce- dures,” she says. “This would likely include total knee replacements, which we are now performing in our ASC.” Parikh encourages ASCs that pro- vide prices online to strongly con- sider adding cash-pay. “Our strength as independent ASCs will be defined by how we differentiate ourselves from hospitals. This type of program is one way we can do so. By provid- ing high-quality patient care with price transparency, patients can receive care that is just as good, if not better, than they would at a hospital in a much more palatable financial environment. If ASCs do not start to look at these kinds of solutions for patients, they may find themselves overlooked as a preferred site of service.”


ASC FOCUS JUNE/JULY 2018 |www.ascfocus.org 15


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