Becker's Spine Review

67 ASC $74M medical office building with ASC , pharmacy sold in Beverly Hills By Patsy Newitt L a Salle Investment Management acquired a Beverly Hills, Calif., medical office building with ASC for $74.4 million. The five-story, 49,721-square-foot building includes a surgery center, full-service pharmacy, valet parking and a rooftop deck, according to a March 25 release. The building is anchored by Keck Medicine of USC and is near several hos- pitals, including Cedars-Sinai Hospital, UCLA Medical Center, St. John's Hospital and Olympia Medical Center. La Salle Investment purchased the building from UBS Realty Investors. Bev- erly Hills medical office properties have had single-digit vacancy numbers since 2002, the release said. n Montecito acquires 2 MOBs occupied by 14-physician spine group By Alan Condon N ashville, Tenn.-based Montecito Medical Real Estate has acquired two medical office buildings in Texas, which are occupied by Ty- ler-based Precision Spine Care, REjournals.com reported March 4. The acquisitions are a 28,218-square-foot facility in Tyler and an 11,600-square-foot center in Texarkana, which includes an ASC. Precision Spine Care is a 14-physician group that specializes in spine surgery and pain management. It has 11 locations across Texas, according to its website. Montecito expected many other acquisitions to close in the first quarter. n North Carolina hospital closes surgery center with 2 ORs to save $1.1M By Eric Oliver A sheboro, N.C.-based Randolph Health closed the Randolph Health Surgery Center to save $1.1 million in operating costs, the Couri- er-Tribune reported. The surgery center had two operating rooms, and the hospital has five on its main campus, according to system CEO Angie Orth, who spoke with the publication. Ms. Orth said to the publication, "Unfortunately, we did not have enough volume or demand for both of those centers to be open at the same time." Randolph Health worked with the center's surgeons to transition their proce- dures back to the hospital. Because Randolph closed the surgery center, it was able to cut back on its contract-based labor costs, realizing additional savings. The hospital is still under lease for the surgery center, and used it as a vac- cination clinic. n "Our administrative teams will need to continue to be creative in allocating resources, financial and hu- man, to maximize efficiencies," she said. 8. Supply availability. Matthew Ewasko, admin- istrator of Physicians Alliance Surgery Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., said the supply chain is a huge challenge for his center. "We are in constant communication with our sup- pliers who are working to get us the items we need, but we have heard that price increases will be com- ing," he said. "While we haven't had to delay any surgical cases due to lack of supplies, we have seen a large increase in our supply costs due to these price increases." When the supply chain normalizes, Mr. Ewasko said the center will be able to return to business operations as they were before the pandem- ic. But the longer price increases and back or- ders continue, the more he will need to reduce spending in other areas to account for the extra supply expenses. 9. Transition of cases from the inpatient to the outpatient setting. "e key factor that will influence our growth over the next 24 months will be the continued movement of procedures from the inpatient set- ting to the ASC by Medicare and commercial payers," said Mr. Grant of Surgery Center of Am- arillo. "As more acute procedures continue to be approved for outpatient services, we will continue to develop our service lines to meet the oppor- tunities for our patients in bariatrics, cardiology and orthopedic services." He also said commercial payers are implementing price structures that provide appropriate reim- bursement for several procedures to moveto ASCs. e overall move of these procedures is positive, but he is concerned about high implant costs since vendors are accustomed to negotiating with hospi- tals, which receive higher reimbursement. "e price point for many of the implants associ- ated with these procedures has not been adjusted by the vendors to account for the opportunity for these cases being done in the ASC setting with re- duced reimbursement," said Mr. Grant. "Successful negotiation of appropriate price points for these implants will be key for our facility over the next 24 months." 10. Staff engagement. e staff culture and en- gagement affect patient and physician experience at an ASC. Having the best equipment and mod- ern decor are meaningless if the staff isn't taken care of, said Mr. Lerma. "e staff will treat the customer, patients and surgeons, by how well they are treated by the management. In my 20 years of surgery center management, I have seen a number of centers succeed and fail from this axiom." n

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