Given the continued fiscal challenges posed by administering healthcare programs, policymakers and regulators should continue to focus on fostering innovative methods of healthcare delivery that offer safe, high-quality care so that progressive changes in the nation’s healthcare system can be implemented.
Support should be reserved for those policies that foster competition and promote the use of sites of service providing more affordable care, while always maintaining high quality and stringent safety standards. In light of the many benefits ASCs have brought to the nation’s healthcare system, policymakers should develop and implement payment and coverage policies that increase access to, and use of, ASCs.