Hospital & Healthcare Management | ASC Expansion of GYN Surgery to Patients in Rural Areas

“Regardless of where they live or what they do, patients should never have to undergo any open procedure when there is a better option that dramatically decreases recovery time, pain, incision size and complications.” -Dr. Paul MacKoul

In a recent Hospital & Healthcare Management article, Dr. Paul MacKoul takes patients on a deeper dive into Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) and how GYN patients can benefit from shorter operating times, shorter recovery times, and overall superior outcomes by choosing a specialist that focuses 100% on GYN surgery.

The typical OBGYN spends roughly 50 percent of his or her time on obstetrics, 25 percent on office, and just 25 percent on surgery. When they do perform surgeries, they are usually done in a hospital setting, and most of these surgeries are open, meaning there is a large incision which results in longer (and more painful) recovery time. Moreover, hospital surgeries typically require the patient to stay overnight, adding to an already costly procedure. By contrast, the minimally invasive techniques developed by Paul MacKoul MD and Natalya Danilyants MD, co-founders at The Center for Innovative GYN Care® (CIGC®), render superior outcomes with faster recovery time and less pain – all in an outpatient setting, which means lower costs for patients as well.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

Realize that the OBGYN is first and foremost concentrating on obstetrics, not surgical care. 

It is estimated that the typical OBGYN generalist only spends 25 percent of his or her time on surgery, whereas the orthopedic surgeon mentioned above is concentrating on and doing surgery 100 percent of the time. It is important for patients to realize that the specialty of OBGYN is very diverse and does not focus primarily on surgery. In fact, the OBGYN generalist spends at least 50 percent of his or her time on obstetrics and 25 percent on office care. This information clearly illustrates that it is impossible for surgery to be the primary focus of the OBGYN, yet more than 90 percent of patients who undergo surgery in the U.S. have it performed by OBGYN generalists. This inability to spend the necessary time on surgical training and learn more effective techniques has led the OBGYN to use different tools –not better techniques –to perform surgery. Robotics is a great example of a very expensive tool that binds the OBGYN to the hospital. Robotics should not, and cannot, be performed at an ASC due to the high and unnecessary cost of the robot, the longer time of surgery, the known increased complications and longer recover times.