Outpatient surgery centers 'poised to outnumber' general hospitals

The AP/Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday examined how outpatient surgery centers are "poised to outnumber general hospitals, if they do not already."

According to CMS, the number of outpatient surgery centers nationally increased from 4,136 in 2004 to 4,445 in 2005. By comparison, there are about 4,800 general hospitals nationwide.

The success of the for-profit centers has "generated tension with hospitals that often survive on thinner profit margins while underwriting money-losing services for the community and serving a greater proportion" of low-income patients, the AP/Inquirer reports.

According to Craig Jeffries, executive director of the American Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers, physicians are opening the centers in part over frustration with trying to schedule surgeries at local hospitals.

In addition, Jefferies said surgery centers can charge patients less for procedures because the centers have lower operating costs.

Mark Pauly, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said hospitals charge more to cover the cost of services that do not generate profits, such as burn centers and education programs.

Jeffries said that the surgery centers are "a very, very successful model that needs to be encouraged and expanded."

Jeffries added, "Unfortunately, it does that at the expense of the traditional position of the hospital in their community."

In recent years, some hospitals have been joining with physicians to open outpatient facilities "in what some hospital officials say is often an effort to keep from losing the whole loaf," the AP/Inquirer reports (Levy, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/12).