Rise of Surgery Centers Almost Equal to Number of Hospitals Nationwide

BOSTON, MA–The number of hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers in the United States is almost equal with 5,532 surgery centers and 5,534 hospitals, according to JLL stats. Surgery centers have grown 82% since 2000 and the trend will continue into 2019.

“There’s a mutual dance going on between the hospitals and surgery centers,” says Mindy Berman, Managing Director, JLL Capital Markets. “Hospitals are willing to drive care to lower costs settings like a surgery center because they are conscious of care and reimbursement. Surgery centers are able to provide acuity care and they can handle it on an outpatient basis.”

Surgery centers, which perform only same day surgeries and do not accommodate overnight patients, can be freestanding or in medical buildings and are typically 15,000 square feet with 3-5 operating rooms. They are usually conveniently located in the suburbs with free parking, newer and nicer facilities and not usually crowded with a very sick population.

“For example, if a patient requires knee surgery, they can go to the main hospital or their satellite surgery center in the suburbs. A lot of patients will conveniently go to the surgery center, have their procedure performed, recover in a less stressful environment and enjoy their exit experience all in the same day,” Berman tells GlobeSt.com. “For those hospitals that own surgery centers, these satellite locations simply expands their surgery capacity.”

That said, the vast majority of surgical centers are not owned by hospitals but by entrepreneurial doctors. Some physicians are actually able to refer patients to their own surgical center and their partnering hospital will also refer to them in order to free-up their operating room time slots for highly sensitive surgeries which require overnight stays.

“Two-thirds of all surgeries are performed on an outpatient basis without an overnight stay,” says Berman. “Procedures include hip and knee replacements, which due to technology, are able to be done in a surgical center setting.”

An increase in the number of surgery centers is also attributed to patients appreciating the lower healthcare costs. These costs are lowered due to shorter recovery periods because of “safer anesthesia without a lingering effect, updated equipment which can observe the patient continuously and in real-time. So, we are basically using technology to bring down the cost of healthcare,” says Berman.

Using technology is essentially “bending the cost curve of healthcare” resulting in the construction of more surgical centers. This trend will continue into 2019 but with a slowing effect as physicians, who previously practiced independently, are now being employed by hospitals and no longer have the time to own surgical centers.

“As there will be more services per capita rendered on an outpatient basis, surgery center utilization will increase and hospitals will focus more on more intensive services,” says Berman. “Surgery centers are now an integral part of our communities.”