The Cost of GYN Surgery: ASCs vs. Hospitals

Deciding on GYN surgery can feel overwhelming with so many factors to consider – where to go for surgery, how much it will cost, how long recovery will take, etc. That’s where The Center for Innovative GYN Care^® (CIGC) comes in, offering value-based care for the full spectrum of complex GYN conditions.

GYN surgeries encompass a range of surgical procedures to treat various conditions that may occur in the pelvic region, including:

Cancer
Endometriosis
Chronic pelvic pain
Ovarian cysts
Abnormal bleeding
Uterine prolapse
Fibroids

Alleviating these conditions with GYN surgery may significantly improve your quality of life, from decreasing your pain to maintaining your ability to start a family. Since GYN surgeries can play such a large role in your life, you want to ensure that you receive the highest quality and most cost-effective care available. Providing exceptional and affordable value-based care is why CIGC performs all of its GYN surgeries at Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs).

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The Difference Between ASCs and Hospitals

1. Surgery at a Hospital is More Expensive

From staffing to the facility itself, overhead fees associated with hospitals are significantly higher, leading to greater costs that are passed on to the patient through “coinsurance.” Coinsurance is the amount the patient has to pay as part of the patient’s responsibility to their health plan. Since hospitals are paid more by insurance companies, the percentage of coinsurance that you have to pay will also cost more.

2. Ambulatory Surgery Centers Cost Less

In comparison to hospital systems, ASCs have substantially lower overhead costs for both staffing and facility. Therefore, insurance companies pay ASCs less, and the savings are passed on to the patient through lower coinsurance payments.

3. Robotics Cost Much More and Require a Hospital

Not only do hospitals lead to higher costs, but they also frequently utilize robotics, which are not a substitute for optimal surgical techniques. A non-robotic surgeon with excellent surgical techniques can use fewer incisions, perform the surgery faster, and have better outcomes than robotic procedures.

Robotics require a greater amount of incisions and take more time, and they often have higher complication rates. The robot does not “perform” the surgery, but it is merely a tool used by the surgeon, meaning the outcome is only as good as the surgeon performing the procedure.

The Bottom Line

ASCs provide exceptional care with higher satisfaction rates, easier scheduling services, lower complication rates, and significantly lower prices than hospitals.

Price Difference

There is a simple and effective way to determine the price difference between GYN surgery at a hospital compared to an ASC. If you visit Medicare Procedure Price Lookup, this free online tool can help determine the exact cost of your procedure at a hospital and at an ASC. All you need is your 5-digit Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code. CPT codes of some common GYN procedures are:

As indicated by the table above, you can save a considerable amount of money having surgery at an ASC instead of a hospital. In addition, having multiple procedures during the same surgery can lead to an even greater amount of savings. On average, our practice has found that ASC procedures are 45% cheaper than those at hospitals, often reaching up to $2,000 or more in savings.

This information applies to all patients with private insurance as well. Medicare is the basis upon which all insurance companies reimburse hospitals and ASCs, so these prices are similar to what patients would pay with Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and United Healthcare.

Benefits of ASCs

Along with saving potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars on your GYN surgery, receiving surgery with our GYN surgical specialists gives you access to advanced, minimally invasive surgical techniques that offer numerous benefits, including:

Greater Patient Satisfaction

Hospitals typically report patient satisfaction levels in the high 60s and low 70s. Meanwhile, ASCs report patient satisfaction in the mid-90s, depicting a huge increase in how happy patients are with their quality of care.

Exemplary Quality of Care

When receiving care in a large hospital system, there are always multiple procedures and different types of care going on, as well as the problems associated with the hospital administration. In contrast, an ASC is a facility dedicated entirely to outpatient surgery, meaning you are always the top priority.

Not only is the facility specialized, but all of the nurses and support staff also only focus on GYN surgeries, which gives them a greater understanding of the procedure and what the patient needs or wants both pre-op and post-op. With this patient-first approach, care is more streamlined and efficient.

Access to GYN Specialists

In a hospital, GYN surgeries are typically performed by OBGYNs without training in advanced laparoscopic surgery. Instead, they are part-time surgeons with a focus on obstetrics, usually spending about 20-25% of their time performing surgery. Conversely, CIGC’s GYN surgical experts have completed training in our advanced, minimally invasive laparoscopic procedures and spend 100% of their time performing surgery and refining their surgical techniques.

Fewer Complications

As displayed by the below graphs, our advanced surgical techniques offer the fewest complications with the best patient outcomes, revealing a combined intra- and post-op complication rate of 9.4% for the Laparoscopically Assisted Abdominal Myomectomy and a 5.4% complication rate for the DualPortGYN Hysterectomy.

Other benefits of GYN surgery at ASCs include:

Less pain
Smaller incisions
Less time under anesthesia
Ability to return home on the day of surgery
Lower risk of infection
Minimal scarring
Faster recovery

CIGC’s Specialized Surgical Techniques

The two surgical techniques that our specialists have developed and perfected to provide you with a world-class surgery experience include:

DualPortGYN®

CIGC specialists developed the groundbreaking DualPortGYN surgical technique to remove large fibroid uteri and manage complex cases of endometriosis and other conditions. This minimally invasive and safe procedure only requires two incisions, enabling minimal blood loss, lower complication rates, and higher success rates. DualPortGYN is most frequently used for the following:

Hysterectomies
Excision of endometriosis
Removal of ovarian cysts

Laparoscopically Assisted Abdominal Myomectomy (LAAM®)

The LAAM is a hybrid surgical approach combining laparoscopy and mini-laparotomy techniques to remove uterine fibroid of all sizes. This technique has been utilized to remove fibroids up to 20 cm, as well as up to 160 fibroids in one patient. LAAM was developed to accelerate the healing process and preserve patients’ fertility.

Both the LAAM and the DualPortGYN are affordable, offer enhanced surgical outcomes, and do not require an overnight hospital stay.

Specialists in Value-Based GYN Surgery

At CIGC, we understand how difficult the decision to get GYN surgery can be, especially for those hoping to start a family one day. The emotional toll that these procedures can have on your life is why our practice has worked tirelessly to develop our minimally invasive and innovative procedures to optimize patient outcomes. We hope to make your decision and recovery as easy as possible.

If you or a loved one need GYN surgery or need help managing your pelvic pain, talk to a GYN specialist at CIGC today to take a closer look at how our surgical options go above and beyond typical hospital care.

If you have been told you may need GYN surgery, the GYN specialists at The Center for Innovative GYN Care can provide a second opinion and help you weigh your surgical and nonsurgical options. Talk to a patient advocate today about meeting with one of our experts.

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