Digital Debut
Bend Surgery Center Hosts Senate Finance Chairman
ASCA Board Treasurer Todd Currier invites Senator Ron Wyden for a facility tour
INTERVIEWED BY MAIA KUNKEL | DECEMBER 13, 2024
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Todd Currier (left) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) during the fall tour of Bend Surgery Center in Bend, Oregon.
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ASCA Board Treasurer Todd Currier hosted Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), chair of the US Senate Committee on Finance, for a tour of Bend Surgery Center in Bend, Oregon, in October. During the tour, discussion surrounded the state of providing healthcare, including the increasing cost of care and declining reimbursement, and the need to support the Outpatient Surgery Quality and Access Act of 2023. Below is an excerpt from an interview with Currier, administrator of the surgery center.
Q: What topics did you discuss during the facility tour?
Todd Currier (TC): During the tour, discussion surrounded several topics of concern for providing healthcare in Oregon. The conversation focused on a provision of the Outpatient Surgery Quality and Access Act that would eliminate the copay cap penalty, the rising cost of care in the state coupled with declining reimbursements for all providers, and the concerning rise of cybersecurity threats and ransomware attacks targeting the healthcare community.
Q: To you, what is the importance of advocating for ASCs with your lawmakers?
TC: I am a strong proponent of advocacy and reaching out to our legislators. ASCAPAC is the only political action committee dedicated solely to the ASC industry. Our lawmakers are pulled in multiple directions, and it is difficult for them to understand all of the issues that are in front of them. The ASC industry continues to face many pressures and challenges, and there are always more that are mounting. We must educate our legislators on topics like site of service, price transparency, copay cap disparity issues, appropriate procedures to be covered, being a voice within Medicare, and how ASCs continue to lead the way in high-quality and lower-cost care. Legislation that threatens the reasons why we are the preferred site of service for patients and physicians alike must be aggressively countered.
Becoming active—both financially and through advocacy—is important to the continued success of the ASC industry. We can no longer sit on the sidelines and continue to watch as the costs of our services—staffing, materials, other inflationary indexes—continue to be greater than our mild reimbursement increases. We must speak up, and it takes all of us to express our voices to be heard.
A strong political action committee, like ASCAPAC, starts with everyone contributing just a little per year. With more than 6,300 Medicare-certified facilities nationwide, it takes a small amount from each and every one of us. All of those small contributions add up, and ASCAPAC can continue to educate our legislators on areas that benefit the ASC industry. If each facility, each physician, each administrator contributed, it would provide such a dramatic boost to our future voices in Washington, DC.
Q: Do you have any takeaways from the facility tour? If so, what are they?
TC: Senator Wyden was very gracious in the time and questions he had for our facility, as well as our ASC industry as a whole. A major takeaway I have is how much lawmakers enjoy meeting their constituents, learning about how we benefit the healthcare system and how much our voices are truly heard. He mentioned that when we participate in letter-writing campaigns—like for the Outpatient Surgery Quality and Access Act—attend town hall meetings, educate him and his staff, and overall illustrate how vital we are to our communities, he listens.
Q: Would you recommend that other ASCs participate in ASCA’s facility tour program?
TC: This is the second facility tour that I was able to have a senator attend, and I was able to have a representative visit our facility last year. I would highly recommend hosting a tour of your facility. Be proud, show off the greatness you provide to your community. Contact ASCA staff and they can help coordinate the visit for you; you do not need to have all the contacts, they will provide them to you. Above all else, advocate for our industry, have your physicians advocate. Waiting for someone else to advocate for you will leave you behind, which in turn, leaves all of us behind.
Hosting facility tours and meetings with your lawmakers, whether in person or virtual, provide opportunities to directly connect with and educate elected officials about ASCs and their impact on their respective communities. ASCA has developed its facility tour program to ensure that conducting a tour is an easy and intuitive process for its members. ASCA members interested in hosting a facility tour for their members of Congress can complete the Facility Tour Interest Form or visit ASCA’s facility tour webpage for more information.
Write Maia Kunkel, ASCA’s Government Affairs manager, at mkunkel@ascassociation.org with questions.