Did You Know? ASC Trivia Answers

See how you did from Monday’s questions!

• Is an RN required to be present during any procedure/operating room time? YES. Florida requires that a registered professional nurse be present in the recovery area at all times and serve as the operating room circulating nurse. They are also responsible for signing off on the patients admission and discharge.
• How many operating rooms and/or procedure rooms are you required to have in order to be considered a surgery center? This is a trick question. Florida does not recognize procedure rooms as a necessary part of the surgery center. You must have at least one operating room, but there are no restrictions for procedure rooms.
• What do the letters CEMP stand for? CEMP stands for Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. Ambulatory surgery centers are required to have and submit for review a CEMP for use during an internal or external disaster. The plan must also be reviewed and reapproved annually. More information on the exact requirements of the CEMP are available in a PDF from this website.
• What is required of the owners, administrator, and financial officer of the ASC prior to licensing? Florida requires all owners, financial officers, and adminsitrators of ASCs to have a Level II background screening if they have not done so in the last five years.

Congratulations to Fred Ortmann!

Ortmann Healthcare Consultants would like to congratulate its President and CEO, Fred Ortmann, for his recent inclusion in Scott Becker’s 44 ASC Management and Development Company CEOs to know. We applaud Mr. Ortmann for his continued success in the ASC development industry.

Did You Know?

A fun way to start the week! 4 quick trivia questions on ASCs. For this round, these questions are specific to ASCs in Florida. How much do you know? Answers revealed later this week!

• Is an RN required to be present during any procedure/operating room time?
• How many operating rooms and/or procedure rooms are you required to have in order to be considered a surgery center?
• What do the letters CEMP stand for?
• What is required of the owners, administrator, and financial officer of the ASC prior to licensing?

Nevada ASCs- what happens next?

Bad news continues to come out regarding the infection control issues for surgery centers in Nevada. News outlets are reporting that more than half of the surgery centers investigated as a result of the hepatitis C outbreak claims had infection control deficiencies. Most of these deficiencies were related to the re-use of single use items, such as syringes, and improper disinfecting and sterilization techniques.

Now that the State health divisions have had the time to review the investigation reports, they are beginning the process of responding and attempting to prevent this situation from occuring again. Unfortunately their solution is not one that many ASC owners can get excited about: increased licensure fees to cover an increase in the frequency of state surveys. Currently the state is authorized to allow for 7 years between inspections of ambulatory surgery centers, but state health officials are looking to increase the frequency to allow for inspections every 18 months. More information about their plans can be read in this article.

And isn’t that just typical? One bad seed can ruin the party and leave the check for the rest of us to cover. However, now would be a good time to make lemonade out of lemons and take advantage of the opportunity to improve care for our patients. There is a lesson to be learned here, and hopefully with a positive attitude and new attention paid to regulatory guidelines, we can improve the quality of healthcare provided in our nations ambulatory surgery centers.

New York Deadline For Accrediting Office Based Surgery Draws Closer

If you perform office based surgery in the state of New York, you only have 4 months left to receive accreditation before the July 14, 2009 deadline. Be aware that your office based surgery practice will be required to have the accreditation process completed by this time and no extension has been planned by the state of New York. Acceptable accrediting organizations are JCAHO, AAAASF, and AAAHC. There is also a list of Frequently Asked Questions available on the New York Department of Health website.

The accrediting process can be lengthy so you want to allow yourself time to collect the application documents, review survey materials, prepare the center for survey, and seek outside help if needed. It would also be wise to have your application in before the last minute rush to avoid delays in scheduling your survey.

If you believe your center will need assistance in applying for and receiving accreditation, contact Ortmann Healthcare Consultants today at 803-252-7979. We would be happy to assist you!

Submitted by Jessica Miller, Director of Regulatory Affairs

Talk of the Day-Increase ASC payments!

In case you just hit the web today, the talk of the internet is the news coming from MedPAC. MedPAC, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, has advised Congress in a new report to increase payments to ASCs by an average of .6 percent. In the report, MedPAC also points out that the payment rates offered by CMS for ASCs in 2008 decrease payments for the highest volume procedures. This topic has not stirred a lot of conversation or debate, which suprises me because I have always thought it to be backward thinking. If Medicare begins to pay less for the procedures performed most often in ASCs (think GI procedures), those procedures may no longer be financially supportive in a freestanding outpatient setting. There may then be a shift to bring those cases back to the hospital, where the procedures are more costly to the US health system then in the surgery center! To me it woud seem that those procedures with high volume benefit the most from being in a low cost setting- what do you think?

This recent news is being covered by various outlets and you can find more thorough reviews here and here.There is a link at the bottom of the second article to access the full (all 424 pages!) report.