About ASCs
Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) are innovative health care facilities that specialize in providing important surgical and preventive services in an outpatient setting. In recent decades, ASCs have emerged as an innovative, cost-effective model for delivering health care. With approximately 5,200 Medicare-certified facilities across all 50 states, ASCs are an integral part of the health care delivery system. In fact, ASCs are now performing up to 40 percent of all surgeries and procedures in the United States – more than 22 million per year. ASCs work with physicians, hospitals and other stakeholders throughout the health care delivery system to ensure patient access to quality care.
ASCs are staffed by highly-trained and licensed medical professionals, including physicians, nurses, physician assistants and other health care experts. They are equipped with full operating rooms providing patients with a wide array of therapeutic and diagnostic ambulatory procedures at a low cost to both the patient and the health care system. Some of the most common procedures performed in ASCs include orthopedic, eye, and abdominal surgeries, and the most common diagnostic service is a colonoscopy.
Click here for a list of procedures often performed in ASCs.
ASCs have always been committed to providing the highest quality care in the safest environment possible. As an industry, ASCs have independently developed quality measures and are voluntarily reporting outcomes in an effort to promote transparency and provide high quality patient care. Data indicate excellence on quality care metrics when procedures are done in an ASC including:
- Low rates of medical error 3
- Low rates of infection 3
- Low incidence of complications leading to readmissions 4
The Ambulatory Surgery Center Advocacy Committee (ASCAC), which includes the national and many state ASC associations as well as representatives of all types of ASC operators and physicians, is working on behalf of the industry to raise awareness of the important role that ASCs play in the health care system.
1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. http://www.cms.gov/.
2 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. http://www.cms.gov/.
3 Koenig L, Doherty J, Dreyfus J, Xanthopoulos J. An Analysis of Recent Growth of Ambulatory Surgical Centers. KNG Health Consulting, LLC; 2009.
4 Mezei G, Chung F. Return Hospital Visits and Hospital Readmissions after Ambulatory Surgery. Annals of Surgery. 1999;230(5): 721–727; Warner MA, Shields SE, Chute CG. Major Morbidity and Mortality within One Month of Ambulatory Surgery and Anesthesia. JAMA. 1993;270(12): 1437–1441.
Did You Know?
Many ASCs focus on services that are recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and Healthy People 2010 & 2020, such as colonoscopy screening learn more >
