Becker's ASC Review

ASC Turnarounds: Ideas to Improve Performance 13 8 Steps to Maximize Compact Scheduling at ASCs By Laura Miller any ambulatory surgery centers are familiar with compact scheduling — scheduling many cases in a row to avoid excessive downtime — but they may not be optimizing these tactics to fully reap the benefits of a busy surgery center and staff. Here are eight steps for ambulatory surgery centers to really impact their bottom line with compact scheduling from MedHQ CEO and EndoLabs Administrator Tom Jacobs and Summit Surgery Center at Saint Mary's Galena Administrator Lori Martin, RN. M The ASC may run into trouble if surgeons schedule cases for 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then again at 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., but nothing in between. The gap could lead to staff downtime and non-productivity. 1. Allow physician control of block scheduling. EndoLabs, a gastroenterology/endoscopy surgery center in Indiana, plans four blocks of time each day and allows physicians to control scheduling within their blocks. "We have an easier time hitting the profitability benchmark if we have 15 cases scheduled per day," says Mr. Jacobs. "There is a drop-off in profitability if we are over or under that number. We let everyone know that and try to coordinate appropriately." "We tell physician schedulers that they can schedule patients within the blocks for their physicians," says Mr. Jacobs. "The physicians essentially control their schedules. We want to group procedures closely together and compact the schedule as much as possible. Usually the physician schedulers know that, so if the physician has four cases, they schedule an hour or twohour time block for those cases." The ASC can still accommodate for special cases, but largely tries to schedule 15 or more cases per day. "Once we communicated with the schedulers and doctors about these benchmarks and the impact of a slower day versus a bigger day, they were in tune with us and wanted to help us make things as efficient as possible," says Mr. Jacobs. 2. Benchmark for schedule optimization. Pay attention to case statistics and employee payment to find the number of paid hours per case for your organization. Benchmark that number to find the threshold where you are most profitable. 3. Communicate gaps to other surgeons. There should be constant communication between ASC schedulers and physician practice

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