• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

ASCs in the news: Competition closes doors of oldest Washington surgery center

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, September 2, 2008

A climate of “fierce competition” has led to the closing of the Olympic Ambulatory Surgery Center in Bremerton, WA on August 15, according to an August 12 article in Bremerton’s Kitsap Sun. Opened in 1977, the facility was the oldest ASC in Washington state, and among the first in the nation, according to the article.

Begun by Larry Iversen, MD, Larry Gorman, MD, George Hall, MD, and other colleagues, Olympic has changed both ownership and location since its founding, reports the newspaper. It ended as part of Surgical Care Affiliates, based in Birmingham, AL. In the article Bill Pethick, vice president of surgery operations for Surgical Care Affiliates, says, "The market did not allow us to continue operation."

The first competing ASC opened in the Bremerton area several years ago, according to the article. A second, the Surgery Center of Silverdale, opened a year ago.

"There are simply too many operating rooms," Olympic’s former administrator Dori Robinson-Shaffer told the Kitsap Sun. She says this reflects a national trend toward excess capacity. Robinson-Shaffer also believes that physicians are more likely to start their own ASC than to affiliate with an established ASC that is part of a national organization. Towards the end, Olympic had only one third of the physicians it could accommodate and treated an average 150 patients a month.

To read the complete story, click here.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive