National ASC Month 2025

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Erik Sunset: Hello. Welcome back. Happy National ASC Month. This is the DocBuddy journal. I am your host Erik here at DocBuddy. We deliver healthcare solutions that take the pain and costs outta broken workflows like with Op Note, which gives ASCs and their affiliated clinics the power of instantly generated operative reports with images.

Erik Sunset: If you need ’em approved from the point of care, you can learn more about Op Note and all of our solutions at docbuddy.com. And yes. Hello. Welcome back. It is the sort of end of summer. It’s winding down here in Miami, back to school next week. Um, so that means a couple things. Obviously a lot more traffic, uh, to get anywhere, at least in South Florida.

Erik Sunset: And because it’s August, it’s also National Ambulatory Surgery Center month. And one of the things that is most widely discussed around [00:01:00] ASCs, how can we make them? Uh, better and move the industry forward, really surrounds awareness. So I wanted to call out a few cool resources from our good friends at ASCA, the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association.

Erik Sunset: And I want to start with a stat. Did you know that Medicare saves more than $4.2 billion each year when procedures are performed at the ASC versus other sites of care? So one of the best things you can do to celebrate national ASC month is to tell a friend, tell a family member, uh, tell anybody that you don’t work with about all of the good things that are happening at ASCs across the country.

Erik Sunset: Um, and having, uh, the, the leader of ASCA Bill Apprentice on our show a couple of times. It’s awareness, awareness, awareness. ASCA does a great job in Washington, DC and all of the state associations do a great job of advocating for ASCs across all of the [00:02:00] state capitals, but it’s really got, it’s gotta be at all levels.

Erik Sunset: Um, and I can just share a personal anecdote when folks, uh, that I know or family members ask me, what do I do? A lot of times the reaction to what is an ASC or what is a surgery center? Uh, uh, is normal. So what do you do? Again, you provide software to, to who, and then you have a little bit of a discussion around the ASC that it is the really the only venue in healthcare where all stakeholders are aligned from the patient to the provider, to the payer.

Erik Sunset: So ASCs are absolutely a net benefit, uh, to the healthcare ecosystem in the us. You know, we fly the flag, hi and proud for our friends at ASCA and for all of our friends at the state associations. So one of the things that I’ll put into the show notes is a link, uh, that comes from asca, um, that can help you broaden the awareness of your ASC and ASCs at large.[00:03:00]

Erik Sunset: Did you know. Um, and this will be provided in the link obviously, that you can actually schedule a facility tour with your Congress people. You see that on LinkedIn from time to time. I know the, the folks at NYS a, so the New York State Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers, they do a really good job of getting their Congress people, uh, and state representatives and senators into their facilities to show ’em what they’re all about.

Erik Sunset: Would highly recommend you consider that for your facility as well. ASCA has also provided some social media banners, email signatures, and even some virtual meeting backgrounds that you can download and use both through national ASC month and then even all year round. And I think most importantly, as we discuss advancing the ASC, and I know there’s some sort of exciting, uh, proposed rules or proposed bills, uh, looking at 2026 calendar year.

Erik Sunset: Where there’s gonna be, or it’s proposed that there’ll be a lot of [00:04:00] procedures coming off that inpatient only list to the ASC. And, you know, that takes a team, um, obviously full credit to ASCA for helping to drive in, uh, in Washington, DC. Full credit to the providers that are advancing care and bringing new procedures to the ASC.

Erik Sunset: So again, it’s a team effort, but one of the biggest impacts you can make is to sign up for National Advocacy Day with asca, where you can meet your Congress people. This is happening next month, September 15th through 17th in Washington dc and registration will close a week from Friday. So that’s Friday, August 15th, national.

Erik Sunset: National Advocacy Day, which is, uh, organized by asca. If you’re able to make that trip, I would highly, highly recommend that you do to continue advancing the ASC, bringing awareness to all of the good that surgery centers do nationwide. Um, and it’ll be time well [00:05:00] spent with your fellow ASC, uh, teammates and colleagues and ASCA there in the nation’s capital.

Erik Sunset: And now changing gears just a little bit, I did want to share some anecdotes, uh, that our, our team passed along from a, a go live that’s happening this week at an ASC out West. Uh, so as part of our, part of our go live process, it’s, it’s really turnkey. Um, prior to your go live day, obviously we’re getting your op note software ready to use or whichever DocBuddy solution, uh, you’ve selected from us.

Erik Sunset: A lot of work goes into that behind the scenes, making sure everybody’s voice command templates are in place, making sure everybody’s provider profiles are in place, making sure that the staff knows what’s happening, um, on the day of go live. And then on that day we are actually out there with you in person.

Erik Sunset: And in this particular case, shout out to our director of product Ashley, by who shared some feedback, uh, for a [00:06:00] group of providers moving off of what we would call an analog workflow. So. Not quite pen and paper, but sort of outdated modalities of generating their operative report documentation. And obviously with, with DocBuddy, the, the provider impact is pretty low.

Erik Sunset: Surgeons get to keep the workflow that they’re used to, which is dictating talking. Um, but the rest of the, the stakeholders for that operative report get a digital outcome. So it’s a really light lift. And, uh, as you’ve heard me say before, the solution demos really well. A lot of the initial feedback we get talking about instant op operative reports with the digital outcome, it’s kind of like, wow, that would be cool if you could do it.

Erik Sunset: And I assure you it is very, very real. So here’s just a couple of, uh, a couple of tales from this week with, from Ashley. There’s a particular surgeon, uh, who didn’t really need a whole lot of help during the go live process, [00:07:00] but in conversation with Ashley while, while the rest of the, the team was going live, the quote is, I don’t know what else to say.

Erik Sunset: DocBuddy is just stupid. Easy. Sounds about right. Highly recommend you take a look at it if you haven’t seen it before, uh, so that you can be the judge of that for yourself. But got a couple, couple more, uh, snippets to share with you. A uh, a younger surgeon has been copying and pasting a template from an old voice rec tool into his operative report or just typing the entire thing, which that’s, that’s crazy town.

Erik Sunset: We actually had a meeting this week with a, a surgery center who still had some providers writing everything out by hand. Um, probably not the best use of surgeon time, but who am I to say? Uh, so this particular younger surgeon’s been copying, pasting, uh, a template into his operative report or typing out the entire, the entirety of it.

Erik Sunset: And on that day, Ashley was with him. They, she added all of his, uh, [00:08:00] former voice rec commands, uh, for a surgeon that’s generally about a week behind on generating and completing his operative reports. So Ashley took the surgeon back in time. They hopped in the time machine. They went back a week or two where there’s some catchup that was needed to get his documentation in place.

Erik Sunset: And during this process, Ashley asked the surgeon if he promised to get his operative reports done on the same day. Now that he has op note. And the feedback was, you just watched me do two op reports in 11 seconds. I think I can handle that. And I can’t believe I was doing what I was doing. Pretty compelling stuff.

Erik Sunset: And then finally, uh, another surgeon who’s been using the hospital’s EHR, uh, to generate operative reports for the surgery center, which quick aside, um, forget about the portability of data from the hospital’s EHR to the surgery center. Not great. What about the portability of data from that [00:09:00] hospital EHR system back to the surgeon’s clinic?

Erik Sunset: Did you think about that? It’s a little tricky. Uh, so, uh, to come back to the point here he is going live at a, at a center tomorrow and said that he will not have a choice now that the facility is on op note. So a little, uh, possibly room for a little trepidation there. You’re gonna make me use something new.

Erik Sunset: I have this workflow that I’ve been doing forever, which by the way, we hear the, we hear that all the time. Oh, this is how we’ve always done it, and it works well enough. It doesn’t really work well enough, you know. If you don’t have the ability to access, create and move data from the point of care, you know, you don’t really have a good workflow, you’re, you’re gonna use labor as a bandaid to cover that up.

Erik Sunset: Um, but all that to say this provider is ecstatic. Uh, the quote was that he’s pumped to try it at this surgery center going live, and then he’ll be using it at the rest of the surgery centers where he does procedures as well. Uh, so I just wanted to share a [00:10:00] little, little user feedback there. Um, I think that’s interesting, especially for folks that are beginning to evaluate the workflows that they have at their ASC.

Erik Sunset: You know, we’ve talked about the labor shortage, the labor shortage so many times, and you just can’t use labor to put a bandaid on these bad and outdated workflows anymore. You, you shouldn’t have been doing that in the first place that, that classic healthcare fix of just throwing people at a problem.

Erik Sunset: That was never the right answer, but it was sort of the easy way out and, uh, and time’s gone by and now you really need technology to do everything that you need to and should be doing at the ASC to deliver the best patient care that you can. Uh, as well as keeping your surgeons happy, staff happy, and accelerating that speed to revenue since that is how you keep the lights on.

Erik Sunset: So more to come in that user, uh, voice of the customer sense from us. You’ll, you’ll see more and more of that just ’cause the stuff that we hear is so compelling. [00:11:00] Then looking ahead a little bit, where can you see DocBuddy next? Well, we’ve got a couple of, uh, conferences coming up, um, and I won’t name all of ’em, but to get us through September, we’ve got three CASA in California hosted and organized by our good friend, April Berg.

Erik Sunset: If you’re listening in April, we love you. Appreciate everything you do for us. That is September 3rd through September 5th out in San Diego for all of our California and West Coast ASC friends. We’ll see you there. Tasca is in a little bit later in September, September 18th through 19th in Franklin, Tennessee.

Erik Sunset: That is the Tennessee Ambulatory Surgery Center Association. I wanna be sure we show love to Tammy out there too. Tammy, thanks for everything you do for us. Uh, we love attending your events. And then a first for DocBuddy. We’ll be supporting and exhibiting also at the Indiana Ambulatory Surgery Center Conference, which is September 25th through 26th.

Erik Sunset: So we’re, we’ll be on [00:12:00] the road through the rest of the year later than that, but that gets us through the next 60 days or so, August. Um, not a whole lot of travel. You can certainly get in touch with us on@docbuddy.com. We’re on LinkedIn or you can email me at Erik@docbuddy.com if there’s anything we can do for you, that’s E-R-A-E-R-I k@docbuddy.com and this will be a little bit shorter episode today.

Erik Sunset: Wanted to convey the good news and wish everybody a happy national ASC month and share some of those ask resources with you. Flew through a little bit of a new user. Uh, go live feedback. Everybody’s psyched at the facilities that were taken live this week and that’s. That’s generally the case. A lot of excitement around meaningful technology for ASCs, and then we’ll see you in California, Tennessee, and Indiana through September.

Erik Sunset: Of course, we’ll be at Becker’s ASC. We’ll be attending a the Massachusetts and New England states ASC conference in October as well. [00:13:00] We’ll keep you posted on all the places that we’ll be. So until we talk again, happy national ASC month. Be sure that you’re subscribed on YouTube, apple Pods, and Spotify, so you always get the newest episodes of the show.

Erik Sunset: And until next time, I’m your host, Erik. We’ll talk to you again soon.