HCA Healthcare Bets Big On Outpatient Strategy

Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare is looking to outpatient and ASC strategy to drive growth.

HCA is one of the largest ASC operators in the country with its Surgery Ventures arm. HCA finished 2023 with 124 ASCs and 24 endoscopy centers, which saw 1,044,415 total surgery cases — a 2.1% increase year over year. Outpatient procedures accounted for 38.3% of patient revenues.

CEO Sam Hazen said Sept. 5 at both the Morgan Stanley’s Global Healthcare Conference and the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference that the health system has an average of 13 outpatient facilities for each hospital. By 2030, he expects that average to grow to between 17 and 20.

“HCA wants to extend the reach of our network for our patients, make it more convenient for them to start their process of care somewhere in the HCA system,” Mr. Hazen said at the Morgan Stanley conference. “HCA’s approach is to take as many outpatient facilities as we possibly can and make it closer to the patient. That’s convenient for the patient, different price points for the patient and so forth, very efficient for the patient, but for us as a system, what it does is it opens up the opportunity for us to interact with the patient upstream, and if they need acute care downstream, we can integrate them, hopefully by having the necessary programs, services or physicians in our network and receive them if they need acute care offerings.”

On Aug. 13, HCA Healthcare won certificate-of-need approval to develop an ASC in Hanover, Va., after two consecutive rejections by state health authorities. Also this year, HCA Surgery Ventures announced the opening of Silicon Valley Surgery Center in Campbell, Calif., through a JV deal with more than 50 physicians.

Source: Becker’s ASC Review