DOING BUSINESS
got into it very quickly. I got our bill- ing people involved. I prefer to see the patient in person, but I think mov- ing forward, telemedicine is going to be ingrained.”
Playing catch-up with patients who were scheduled for important GI procedures but postponed during the first three months of the pandemic is important both to patient health and to an ASC’s financial health. “We have been vigilant about
keeping a log of patients that we would have seen in March, April and May when we were not doing screen- ing colonoscopy,” Jenkins said. “We have been contacting those patients and getting them in as fast as we can, especially the unhealthier patients or patients who needed to be looked at due to a positive Cologuard or ane- mia, for example.” Williams is taking a similar approach at Athens Gastroenterol- ogy. “Within the next few weeks, I am probably going to open up Saturday hours to relieve the backlog,” he said.
ASC leaders are looking across many areas of their business to maximize efficiency through their COVID-19 recovery, including using mid-level professionals such as nurse practitio- ners and physicians assistants to see patients in their centers as appropri- ate, working effectively with anes- thesia partners, and leveraging the advantages of doing procedures in the ASC setting, away from a hos- pital environment made even busier and riskier by COVID-19. My perspective has been that anesthesia ought to be playing a help- ful role, particularly from an effi- ciency perspective. One of the most common concerns we hear is related to anesthesia scheduling. Specifi- cally, centers struggle to find cover- age when an anesthesia provider can-
Medicine is a slow-moving vehicle and COVID-19 basically put the foot on the accelerator to move telemedicine forward.”
—Jeff Williams, MD, Athens Gastroenterology
cels last minute due to an emergent event or they are frustrated by a lack of flexibility when there is a need to change start times or accommodate an add-on case.
Administrators describe this issue as “reliability” or “flexibility,” whereas surgeons call it “unneces- sary day-of-service cancellations.” Anesthesia can be a key driver for efficiency, particularly if you have a partner that has a proven approach for coverage.
Jenkins agreed: “Anesthesia has helped efficiency in a number of ways, including upper endoscopies.”
Williams echoed Jenkins: “Our anesthesia team has been an integral part of my surgical center. We look to them to go over our patients to make sure that nothing was missed on our end. For instance, their ASA classifi- cation, did they have pulmonary prob- lems or cardiac problems that need to be addressed? They have been a major asset to me and my practice.”
.
ASC FOCUS SEPTEMBER 2020 |
ascfocus.org 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30
