During a Jan. 21 webinar hosted by Becker’s ASC Review five surgical trends for hospitals in the USA were identified.
Five key trends in 2021:
1. Patient expectations. This year will see a rise in virtual care and a focus on the patient-centric environment.
2. Outpatient migration. The pandemic has accelerated outpatient surgical migration from hospitals toward ASCs. Other contributors to outpatient growth include reduced cost, lower case cancellation rate, payers advocating for the use of ASCs and CMS’ plan to eliminate the inpatient only list.
3. Increased price transparency. Healthcare policy changes regarding price transparency continue to direct how patients seek care. Price transparency is driven by increasing demand based on rising out-of-pocket costs and the government’s goal to reduce the overall healthcare spend.
4. Margin pressures. While HHS distributed more than $178 billion in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funding to hospitals and healthcare providers last year, hospitals are estimated to have lost $323.1 billion in 2020 because of the pandemic, Key will be surgeon retention, limiting same-day case cancellations and creating outcome- or risk-based contracts with vendors.
5. Data-driven operating rooms. The amount of healthcare data doubles every 73 days. The key for 2021 will be focusing on ways to turn that data into insight. For example, a delay in first case on-time starts and slow turnovers can lead to unnecessary labor cost and forgone revenue due to lost volume.
