Contact: Joe Martin
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PHC4 RELEASES STATE'S AMBULATORY SURGERY CENTERS FINANCIAL ANALYSIS 2014

Harrisburg, PA - October 19, 2015 - Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) in Pennsylvania experienced modest improvement in their financial margins in fiscal year 2014 (FY14), according to a new report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4). The average total margin among ASCs increased slightly to 25.77% (from 25.13%) over the previous year. The average operating margin increased to 25.56% (from 24.94%).

"The data shows that our Pennsylvania's ambulatory surgery centers financial margins continued to increase in fiscal year 2014," said Joe Martin, executive director of PHC4. "The report reflects that the net number of ambulatory surgery centers increased slightly from 285 to 288, although certainly not as rapidly as we have seen in the past."

During FY14 the number of ASCs in the state increased by a net of three to 288. Seven ASCs opened in FY14 and four ASCs closed. Previously, between FY00 and FY09, the number of ASC facilities had grown from 72 to 262, an average increase of 21 per year.

ASCs reported 1.042 million outpatient visits in FY14 which is a 2.1% decrease from the 1.063 outpatient visits in FY13.

The net outpatient ASC revenue increased 3.8% from $1,153 billion in FY13 to $1.197 billion in FY14.

The total outpatient procedures performed during FY14 at ASCs represented 28.8% of the total outpatient procedures in Pennsylvania, the remaining 71.2% were performed at general acute care hospitals.

ASCs performed 929,192 outpatient procedures in FY14 which is a 1.5% decrease from the 943,479 performed in the prior year.

PHC4's report on ambulatory surgery centers is the second in its three-part Financial Analysis series. Volume One, released in May, reported on the financial health of general acute care hospitals. Volume Three, to be released later this year, will focus on non-general acute care hospitals (rehabilitation, psychiatric, long-term acute care and specialty hospitals).

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council is an independent state agency charged with collecting, analyzing and reporting information that can be used to improve the quality and restrain the cost of health care in Pennsylvania.