ASCs in the news: California ASCs slowly working through no-license tangle

According to the article, in a 2007 action before a state court of appeals (Capen v. Shewry) a physician challenged the California Department of Public Health’s (DPH) contention that it had oversight over his surgery clinic. When the court found for the appellant, the DPH interpreted the decision to mean that it had no authority over ASCs with some physician ownership, and stopped issuing licenses. (See California agency stops licensing physician-owned ASCs in the June 10 issue of ASRU.) 

The East Bay Business Times reports that new legislation (AB 1574) allows the state pharmacy board to grant limited licenses to clinics and ASCs to purchase medication wholesale, allowing them to make bulk purchases in their own right. Since the DPH withdrew from licensing, ASC medical directors have had to make medication purchases under their own medical licenses. The step is a beneficial one, says the article, but leaves other questions unanswered.

When their state licenses lapse, the Business Times says that many centers seek accreditation from the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) to maintain relations with managed care. According to O’Dell, whose firm hopes to open ASCs in California, the number of centers seeking accreditation exceeds the number of AAAHC inspectors, which is delaying the opening of some of his centers and the entire accreditation process.

“It’s been a process change for a lot of people,” California Ambulatory Surgery Association (CASA) president Deborah Mack told the newspaper. CASA has also lobbied the state to adopt licensing standards for ASCs similar to those of the federal government. “The Department of Public Health, I am assuming, is going to want to develop state licensure requirements,” Bryce Doherty, CASA legislative advocate, said in the article. “If it was good enough for Medicare, then why isn’t it good enough for California?”