ASCs Back Legislation Aimed at Providing Consumers Access to Quality and Price Information for Health Care Services and Settings
Chris Holden, Member of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Advocacy Committee and President and CEO of AmSurg, an ASC management company, delivered remarks at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill.
ASC Advocacy Committee Testifies before Congress
in Support of H.R. 4803
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2010 – Today, the ASC Advocacy Committee testified before Congress in support of legislation that would provide Americans access to important information related to the price and quality of health care services and settings. Chris Holden, Member of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Advocacy Committee and President and CEO of AmSurg, an ASC management company, delivered remarks at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in support of the “The Patients’ Right to Know Act” (H.R. 4803). Introduced by Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX) and Bart Stupak (D-MI), the bill aims to increase consumers’ ability to make decisions about their health care by presenting meaningful data on the price and quality of services provided by hospitals and ASCs.
Provisions in this legislation would enable patients and their physicians to choose the highest quality, lowest priced setting appropriate for their care. There is significant variation in the price of health care services, information that would be a valuable tool to consumers who face increasingly high copayments or simply lack insurance. In addition, there is little information currently available to consumers allowing them to compare the quality of services across available providers in their communities.
“We believe this bill will empower patients with critical information in order to make more informed decisions on where to receive their care,” Holden said during his testimony before the Committee. “Because many outpatient surgeries can be performed in hospitals and ASCs, it is important to provide patients with meaningful price comparisons across settings.”
ASCs specialize in providing important surgical and preventive services in an outpatient setting including cataract surgeries to repair eye sight and colorectal cancer screenings. In fact, ASCs perform over 40 percent of all Medicare colonoscopies in the U.S. each year. Despite the important role of ASCs, many Americans are not aware that ASCs provide cost-savings for the entire health care system, including patients, payers and taxpayers. Research supports that Medicare patients can save more than 50 percent on out-of-pocket costs when having a procedure at an ASC, and also save the Medicare program approximately 40 percent annually.
The provisions in the proposed legislation could increase these savings for patients and payers, as consumers make more informed decisions when choosing a medical setting for a procedure or surgery.
“Medicare always saves money when patients choose an ASC for their outpatient surgery. Beneficiaries can save even more,” Holden added.
Additionally, ASCs support greater transparency of quality data across all health settings. More than 20 percent of ASCs – approximately 1,200 facilities – are already voluntarily reporting results on ASC quality measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF), and the industry continues to urge the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to implement a system for nationwide quality reporting. If passed, this bill would require health care facilities to report on similar quality measures to help consumers to make comparisons about the quality of care provided across multiple settings.
“As an industry, we are committed to providing the highest quality care in the safest and most cost-effective setting as possible,” said Andrew Hayek, Chair of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Advocacy Committee and President and Chief Executive Officer of Surgical Care Affiliates. “We support this legislation because it could provide millions of Americans access to important information related to the price and quality of the health care services they receive.”
The ASC Advocacy Committee welcomes the opportunity to work with Members of Congress and other stakeholders to advance this bipartisan legislation that empowers patients and the providers who care for them.
To download the full testimony delivered at the hearing, click here.
About the Ambulatory Surgery Center Advocacy Committee
Ambulatory Surgery Centers are health care facilitates that specialize in providing important surgical and preventive services in an outpatient setting. With approximately 5,300 Medicare-certified facilities throughout the country, ASCs perform more than 25 million surgeries per year. The Ambulatory Surgery Center Advocacy Committee is working on behalf of the industry to raise awareness of the important role that ASCs play in the health care system and the high-quality, cost-effective care that ASCs provide. The ASCAC includes the national and state ASC associations as well as representatives of all types of ASC operators and physicians. For more information about ASCs, visit www.advancingsurgicalcare.com.
Media Contact:
Kay Tucker, ASCA
(703) 836-8808
ktucker@ascassociation.org
