Salaries Rise, Hiring Increases Expected at Majority of ASCs

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Salaries Rise, Hiring Increases Expected at Majority of ASCs

ASCA’s 2021 Salary & Benefits Survey report can help ASCs compete for talent

BY KAY TUCKER | AUGUST 2021

Salaries for nearly every position in an ASC continued to trend upward this year, according to data collected in ASCA’s 2021 Salary & Benefits Survey. In fact, most ASCs reported budgeting 3% salary increases for both hourly and salaried staff. At the same time, 71% of ASCs projected hiring would increase in 2021.

The survey results also show that 98% of ASCs offer health insurance benefits to their employees and 95% offer family health insurance plans, but 58% have recently adopted changes to control the cost of these plans. Some of the most popular include increasing deductibles, increasing employees’ copays and changing insurance carriers. Preferred provider organization (PPO) plans remain the most common, but more facilities are beginning to offer flexible spending accounts than in the past.

Data collected on other popular benefits show most ASC administrators, business office managers, directors of nursing/head nurses/nurse managers and materials managers are eligible for bonuses. Additionally, 92% of ASCs offer retirement benefits and 34% offer a profit-sharing plan. Ninety-seven percent of ASCs have employee leave policies, with a median of 21 days as the maximum number of paid time off days full-time employees can earn. The percentage of ASCs offering reimbursement for tuition and continuing education is 47%.

Trends in Staff Turnover

In a special section of the survey added this year to examine turnover trends during the pandemic, 18% of respondents reported employee turnover rates greater than 20% in 2020. At the same time, 41% of respondents indicated that their turnover rate was about the same as in 2019, and 35% reported a higher turnover rate. Meanwhile, 24% of ASCs reported a turnover rate of just 1%–5% among management staff and 72% reported no turnover in management staff at all.

Only 11% of ASCs reported no voluntary turnover in clinical staff during 2020, with 48% reporting a clinical staff turnover rate of 1%–5% and 10% reporting a rate greater than 20%. Thirty-nine percent of the participating ASCs also reported no voluntary turnover in their nonclinical staff, while 46% reported a turnover rate of 1%–5% and just 2% reported a rate greater than 20%.

CASC and CAIP Certification

According to the survey report, just 9% of participating ASCs require their administrators to hold the Certified Administrator Surgery Center (CASC) credential. Of those that do, nearly half pay their CASC-certified staff more.

By comparison, 16% of ASCs require their infection preventionists to hold the Certified Ambulatory Infection Preventionist (CAIP) credential and another 11% of ASCs require these individuals to hold the Certification in Infection Prevention and Control (CIC) credential. In ASCs that require the credentials, 73% pay credentialed staff more either through a one-time bonus, a pay increase or a combination of both.

Demographics

More than 600 ASCs participated in this year’s survey, which was open during the entire month of June.

In addition to salary and benefits information, the survey collects demographic information from participants. This year’s survey revealed the following:

  • physicians own some part or all of 95% of the participating ASCs
  • the median number of full-time employees is 20
  • the median number of years in business is 16
  • while nearly 1/3 of the ASCs are in the South, the other facilities were almost equally distributed between the northeastern, midwestern and western US
  • about 1/3 of the ASCs are in urban areas and 2/3 in suburban and rural communities
  • the median number of patient encounters, or cases, per year was 3,483

“ASCA’s 2021 Salary & Benefits Survey results show that ASCs are paying more to hire and retain the skilled staff they need to provide the high-quality care patients expect from them,” says ASCA Chief Executive Officer Bill Prentice. “Still, ASCs remain the lower-cost provider of these services, and Medicare and private payers need to update their reimbursements to ensure that their beneficiaries continue to have access to the efficient care that ASCs offer.”

Get the Full Report

ASCA conducts its Salary & Benefits Survey, which collects data on 20-plus ASC job positions, employee benefits and ASC demographics, every other year. Any ASC can participate for free, and those that complete at least 40 percent of the questions on the survey get free access to the final report. ASCs can use the information these reports provide to compare their compensation packages to similar ASCs, negotiate raises and determine salary and benefits for new positions.

The digital survey report allows users to filter their results and make comparisons with other ASCs in the same region, of the same specialty or with similar characteristics, such as number of employees, or total number of patient encounters each year. ASCs that do not participate in the survey can purchase access to the final report on ASCA’s website.