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Every year in the United States, about 1,500 people have surgical items accidentally left inside them following a surgical procedure.1 About two-thirds of these items are sponges, which can lead to pain, infection, difficulty healing, and additional surgeries.
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Regardless of the specifics of an individual contract, outpatient surgery providers are facing decreased reimbursement overall, says Anne Dean Schilling, RN, BSN, consultant with The ADA Group in DeLand, FL. This reduction means you need to reduce overhead, she says.
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Increased emphasis on patients at risk for postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), enhanced information on anesthesia for pediatric patients, and focus on post-discharge PONV are three significant changes in the Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia Guidelines for the Management of Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting.
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The Massachusetts Hospital Association recently announced that all Massachusetts hospitals are adopting a uniform policy to not charge patients or insurers for certain serious adverse events, including wrong-site surgeries, as defined by the National Quality Forum (NQF). In doing so, Massachusetts becomes only the second state in the nation to take this voluntary action.
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Patients with limited arthritis in their knees typically had to live with pain and discomfort or wait until deterioration reached a point at which they could undergo a total knee replacement, but new technology gives patients a third option that allows them to return to normal activity without pain earlier in their lives.
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Although mastectomies have been performed in outpatient surgery programs for several years, skepticism about the safety of outpatient mastectomies with immediate reconstruction has kept some physicians from letting patients know about the option, say experts interviewed by Same-Day Surgery.
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There are times when a freestanding surgery center is not feasible. Some of the more significant reasons include:
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The three major gastroenterology associations released a statement in 2004 that said monitored anesthesia care (MAC) is not needed for routine colonoscopy procedures.
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In April, Aetna will join several other payers, including WellPoint and Humana, that say it isn't medically necessary to have an anesthesia professional present for average-risk individuals undergoing standard upper or lower gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopic procedures.
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Hospital inpatients with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are isolated from other patients to reduce the risk of colonizing other patients or visitors, but how does an outpatient surgery program isolate a patient when there often is a shortage of space and a need to move many patients through a single area in a short time?
