Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are an increasingly integral component of the healthcare delivery landscape. However, specialties that are core to health systems’ identity, like orthopedics, spine, and cardiovascular, are now also starting to shift to ASCs.¹

But health systems fully own only 3% of the more than 11,000 ASCs in the United States.² As services critical to hospital revenue shift out of the hospital, health systems will need to make tough decisions about where to provide certain services that will dictate the long-term success of their surgical care businesses. Among the most important of these decisions are:

• Which services to offer in ASCs.
• How various services should be mixed across ASC locations.
• What ownership/partnership structure to pursue.
• How to improve operational efficiency, and in turn, maximize margins.

These decisions are not only critical; they are also complex. Each has many inputs revolving around local-market forces and health system-specific strategies and capabilities that inform the best course of action. To simplify these complex analyses, we’ve created a checklist to help health systems navigate these crucial decisions.