Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
What to Know About CMS’s 2026 Final Rule for ASCs image

What to Know About CMS’s 2026 Final Rule for ASCs

S1 E134 · This Week in Surgery Centers
Avatar
0 Playsin 4 hours

If you’ve been looking for a clear, ASC-focused breakdown of the 2026 CMS final payment rule, this episode is for you. This week, ASCA’s Chief Advocacy Officer, Kara Newbury, joins us to break down the most important things ASC leaders should note coming out of the 1600+ page document (all in under half an hour). Kara takes us through the reimbursement rate, the weight scalar update and ASCA’s advocacy for its elimination, a major rate oversight on the most common ASC procedure, massive covered procedure list expansion, and more.

In our data segment, we look at patient payment behavior at ASCs and discuss some of the reasons why partial payments are rising and paid-in-full cases are declining, and how financial stress and insurance complexity are showing up in case cancellation rates.

Resources mentioned:

Ambulatory Surgery Center Association

Calendar Year 2026 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center Final Rule

HST Pathways 2024 State of the Industry Report

Brought to you by HST Pathways.

Recommended
Transcript

Podcast Introduction and Format

00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to This Week in Surgery Centers. If you're in the ASC industry, then you're in the right place. Every week, we'll start the episode off by sharing an interesting conversation we had with our featured guest, and then we'll close the episode by recapping the latest news impacting surgery centers. We're excited to share with you what we have, so let's get started and see what the industry's been up to.

2026 ASC Final Payment Rule Discussion

00:00:24
Speaker
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to This Week in Surgery Centers. This week, I'm talking to Cara Newberry, the Chief Advocacy Officer at ASCA, about the 2026 final payment rule for ASCs that was passed down from CMS just before Thanksgiving.
00:00:39
Speaker
She does a fantastic job of summarizing the key takeaways from the roughly 1,600-page document that ASC leaders need to know. She also highlights areas of ASCA's ongoing policy work and helps us see the real opportunities and challenges ahead in our industry.

Patient Payment Behaviors Analysis

00:00:54
Speaker
you Then in our data segment, we are going to take a look at the state of patient payments.
00:00:59
Speaker
Outside of payer considerations, what does patient payment behavior really look like at ASCs, and what could it signal? Spoiler alert, the total collections number is actually trending downward, but the number of patients who are making at least a partial payment is increasing.
00:01:15
Speaker
Our next few episodes on the podcast actually focus on the topic of payments, so we're going to use the data from our latest state of the industry report to set the stage for those. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and here's what's going on this week in surgery centers.

Reimbursement Rate Changes Explained

00:01:37
Speaker
I'm so excited to talk about the CMS final rule for ASCs for 2026, which I know everybody's really interested in. We just got it a few weeks ago. So before we get started, Kara, it would be awesome if you could just give us a quick introduction.
00:01:51
Speaker
Sure. My name is Kara Newberry. i am the chief advocacy officer with ASCA, and I've been with the association for about 14 years. Fantastic.
00:02:01
Speaker
So the final rule itself was over 1,500 pages. There's a ton of information in there, and the webinar you did was super helpful. So I encourage anyone who's an ASCA member to check that out for sure. But today, i'd love to just cover some of the highlights and maybe talk about a few of the key points that you think are really important for ASC leaders to keep an eye on as we head into the new year.
00:02:22
Speaker
Let's start with the reimbursement rate. What is it? What changed? And did it align with your expectations? Great. So it was across the board an effective update of approximately 2.6%. Now that is an average across all codes, and it's subject to vary based on specialty. But 2.6% is slightly better than the 2.4% that we saw in the proposed rule.
00:02:49
Speaker
um That 2.6% is the same effective update that hospital outpatient departments were set to get. And that is because we are still going to be updated based on the hospital market basket for 2026, which was something that ASCA advocated for and will continue to advocate for moving forward as well.
00:03:08
Speaker
Historically, we had been updated on the consumer price index for all urban consumers prior to 2019, that is typically a lower update. So we'd like to stay on hospital market basket.

ASC Weight Scaler Impact

00:03:20
Speaker
During the webinar, you also mentioned the 0.872 secondary rescaling factor for ASC weights. And I think this is relevant. It might be a little confusing for people who aren't super in the weeds. So could you explain in plain English with what that is and how even when CMS is saying we're getting a 2.6% update, how does that scalar kind of change things?
00:03:41
Speaker
Right. So even though our payment system is tied to hospital outpatient departments, each individual payment system, CMS is looking at it and trying to contain costs and trying to maintain budget neutrality in each siloed payment system.
00:03:58
Speaker
and CMS adjusts the weights. They do it in the hospital outpatient department setting, and then our weights are based on that. So then they do what we call a secondary weight scaler or an ASC weight scaler when they bring those over to the ASC setting. So if you can picture there's like a pie of money and somebody is We're getting more money, like slightly more money for the inflationary update. But besides that, CMS would like to keep that pie relatively the same size.
00:04:30
Speaker
And so what they do is they scale those weights when they come over to the ASC setting. And in the proposed rule, the weight scaler was 0.842%.
00:04:42
Speaker
I guess that CMS was making a lot of errors this year because they indicated in the final rule that was also a mistake. And so they said that it was supposed to have been 0.872.
00:04:54
Speaker
So when the weights come over from the HOPD setting were cut, you know, approximately 13% are weights instead of... what, 16%, close to 16% that it would have been if it was 0.842. That's already factored into when you look at the reimbursement rates that you'll see either on the ASCO rate calculator or on the documents that are on CMS's website. But that does contribute to a growing disparity in rates, even though we are updated on the same update factor, that hospital market basket. So that's something else that ASCA is advocating for. We're asking for them to stop applying this secondary or ASC weight scaler and to just lump in all of the volume between hospital operation departments and ASCs at the same time, do one scaling and call it a day. And so if that were to happen, it would be a huge boon to ASC reimbursement. So that's something that we're pushing for. We're going pushing forward through legislation, but we also have asked CMS to make that change. They have not to date. It's something that we will pursue in 2027 now.
00:06:00
Speaker
Absolutely. And I imagine we'll talk about it in just a minute, the expansion to the covered procedures list, more and more procedures coming over. our That's going to make a significant difference. yeah So we'll get to that in just a second. But I do want to talk a little bit more about codes and specific adjustments that CMS made because something interesting happened with ophthalmology.

Correction in Ophthalmology Codes

00:06:19
Speaker
They're obviously representing a huge proportion of procedures that are done in ASCs. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened there?
00:06:27
Speaker
Sure. In the proposed rule, 66984, a cataract code, which is by far our highest volume code, there were over about 1.18 million of those procedures done on fee-for-service beneficiaries in 2023, which is the last full year of data that I have.
00:06:43
Speaker
And in the proposed rule, CMS indicated that the rate was set to drop, um be cut by about 4.7%. And the ophthalmic societies got together. We were in conversations with them beforehand, too, and they told us what they found. They had some outside analyses done and determined that there was an error in the calculations in the proposed rule.
00:07:08
Speaker
And so in the final rule, CMS acknowledged that was correct. There was a mistake that was made in the proposed rule. And now the update between 2025 and 2026 is set to be actually a 3.4% increase instead of a 4.7% decrease. And so that's extremely good news for all of our ophthalmic practices.
00:07:32
Speaker
Absolutely. What's the takeaway here for other specialties? It's kind of in in some ways it's scary, right? So when we were doing our comment letter, I had some folks call me and say, who's to say that there weren't mistakes that were made for all other codes? And that is certainly a possibility. There were certain very specific factors that I think played into this. But absolutely, I think the key is when you see something in proposal that doesn't look right or when you see something that you don't like, and we'll get to this when we talk about quality reporting, especially in a bit, please comment, provide those public comments, because that is really the only
00:08:13
Speaker
way between a proposed rule and a final rule that we're going to see some of these changes made. So if the ophthalmic groups had not joined together and had that analysis done, who knows what would have happened. Maybe CMS wouldn't have taken a second look at that. We don't know. And so I think it is extremely important always to be on top of these rules and to be participating in that notice and comment period to make sure that our voices are heard.
00:08:41
Speaker
For sure. don't Don't assume that everything that comes out in the proposal correct. And on that note, actually, don't assume everything in the final rule is correct either. So unfortunately, CMS does sometimes come out with correction notices. And so like our rate calculator where members can go and they can look at their rate and their specific geographic area, it's up on our website now available.
00:09:03
Speaker
Unfortunately, CMS typically makes changes and corrections to that at the end of December. so you'll get that up as soon as possible. Right now we have the most updated information that CMS has released up on our website, but there there could be corrections still to come. And with the rule coming out so late, it came out almost three weeks later than usual this year. and so maybe they were scrambling and there could be errors. So we will see when that correction notice comes out how much you know of a difference there is.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. That's an important caveat. So let's talk about that covered

Expansion of ASC Covered Procedures List

00:09:37
Speaker
procedures list. I know that CMS removed several exclusion criteria and there have been hundreds of codes added, which is great news. Can you talk about what changed and why it's different this year and what people should be paying attention to?
00:09:51
Speaker
Sure. And a lot of it really is coming back from the last payment rule that the first Trump administration was responsible for, which was the 2021 payment rule. So in that rule, there were some pretty sweeping changes made.
00:10:06
Speaker
There certain you mentioned criteria. There are certain factors that CMS is looking at when they're evaluating these codes. Things like, you know, does the procedure require excessive blood loss? Would it require medical monitoring and care past midnight?
00:10:20
Speaker
And what CMS finalized in this rule is they took away those as absolute exclusions, exclusionary criteria, and they put them into a physician consideration category. So now that it's the physician's responsibility. And of course, the physicians were already doing their due diligence and evaluating every patient individually to determine if it was safe to perform those cases. And we will continue to do. But this takes off that absolute restriction.
00:10:48
Speaker
And due to that, CMS said that they were adding the 271 codes that were in the proposed rule just based on those criteria. In addition, were talking about it's important to advocate, it's important to submit comments, right?
00:11:01
Speaker
There were dozens of codes that were not part of that 271 that were submitted during the public comment period. And CMS did also choose to add 13 those.
00:11:14
Speaker
So just based on looking at these criteria, codes that were previously allowed in the hospital outpatient department setting, um CMS is adding 289 procedures. like Of most kind of importance or interest to us at ASCA were some of the codes that we requested, including some electrophysiology studies and cardiac ablation codes, a few ah additional percutaneous coronary intervention, PCI codes. We had already gotten some PCI codes added years ago, but a few that were requested we got added as well.
00:11:50
Speaker
And then actually one of the 13 that was not in the proposed rule but was in the final rule is a cardioversion code. a 92960, which ASCA had requested. With many of these procedures, the ones specifically that relate to codes in their wheelhouse, we work closely with the Heart Rhythm Society, who also is engaged with AC, the cardiologists, and we all work together.
00:12:13
Speaker
They met with CMS to present on these. We so paul followed up and supported that in a meeting we had with CMS. So we were happy to see a lot of those car cardiology codes.
00:12:23
Speaker
being added for 2026. In addition, there were two lumbar fusion codes, some spine codes that we've been requesting for a long time that were added, so we're happy to see that.
00:12:34
Speaker
And then in addition to the those codes that were previously allowed in the outpatient department setting of a hospital, CMS is now starting a transition, and a three-year transition to eliminate the inpatient-only list.
00:12:50
Speaker
And different from what the first Trump administration did in 2021, CMS actually took hundreds of those codes that they're removing from the IPO list, the inpatient only list, and are putting them directly onto the ASE cover procedure list as well. So not quite all of the codes that are being removed for 2026, but 271 of the codes that are being removed are going to also be put straight on the ASC cover procedure list. So those keeping track at home, that is a grand total of 560 codes set to be added. Now, the ones coming off the inpatient only list all fall within the musculoskeletal code range. A lot of procedures, though, that will be on the list in 2026 that are not in 2025.
00:13:33
Speaker
that are not in twenty twenty five Fantastic. That's great news for ASCs.

Facility Fees for Cardiac Procedures

00:13:38
Speaker
I'm really curious about cardiac, and I'd love to just like drill in on the cardiac ablation codes that were added. In the proposed rule, CMS was talking about reimbursements for those like in the $20,000 plus range.
00:13:50
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about what that means when CMS turns on a facility fee that's that substantial within an ASC setting? How do you think that might change behavior and what are ultimately the implications for Medicare spend and potentially patient cost sharing?
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, and it's tough too because you have to also look at a lot of these are device or implant heavy procedures. So like when we added total shoulder, for instance, the device cost is pretty so substantial. And so even though the reimbursement seemed decent.
00:14:25
Speaker
it It was not maybe adequate in a lot of geographic areas because you get more in California and a lot of California communities than you get in rural communities in the South. And so you really have to evaluate and look at each procedure and what it's going to cost to your facility to perform that procedure.
00:14:45
Speaker
But yeah, it's always positive, I think, to get these new codes added, although it is a higher reimbursement rate than maybe some of our other procedures. We are still getting paid less than the hospital outpatient departments.
00:14:57
Speaker
Now, for like I said, if the codes are J-8, which means they're device intensive, the disparity isn't quite as much, but we are still getting less. And so it's saving the Medicare program money. Now, I will say, unfortunately, there is a problem with a lot of these higher dollar items in the ASC setting. And that's the fact that there is a cap.
00:15:20
Speaker
on what Medicare beneficiary would pay if they had a procedure performed in a hospital outpatient department or an inpatient department. And there's no such cap in the ASC space. So you mentioned maybe we'll say a $20,000, let's say there was $20,000 procedure, and the right now in the HOPD is $1676,000.
00:15:35
Speaker
and the cab right now in the h opd is sixteen seventy six So instead of a 20% coinsurance, they would only be paying that $1,676. Whereas in the ASC, 20% and I'm doing my quick off the cuff math, 20% of $20,000 is $4,000. So they would be more they would pay more than double to have that procedure done in the ASC. Now, the Medicare program doesn't save any money when it's done in the hospital outpatient department because there's The hospital is still made whole.
00:16:06
Speaker
It's just the beneficiary that suffers. ASCA has legislation that we're promoting right now to fix this issue where ASCs would have the same cap that hospital outpatient departments have, but it's not been enacted yet. So while it's great news, and if beneficiaries have supplemental insurance, They wouldn't, they're not going to feel the pain of that ah additional patient responsibility, that coinsurance.
00:16:27
Speaker
But for those who don't, it's a big issue. And so I don't know if we'll see quite as much migration to the ASC as we would see if we had that copay cap in place for ASCs as well.
00:16:39
Speaker
That makes total sense. So on the surface, it does look like a lot of opportunities opening up. There's still some issues on the patient cost side that need to be worked out before we really see that migration of volume. So one thing that didn't change this year is CMS's stance on unlisted

Exclusion of Unlisted Codes by CMS

00:16:54
Speaker
codes. And you talked about this on the webinar.
00:16:56
Speaker
are And these are CPTs that are still excluded from any reimbursement if the procedure is done in an ASC. Ah. How does this new language in 416.166 treat unlisted codes? And what does this ultimately mean for ASCs who are advocating for and trying to move more complex procedures into the ASC setting?
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately, cms didn't eliminate all of the exclusions. So there's one general catch-all basically indicating that we only get reimbursed for surgery or ancillary codes performed conjunction with surgery.
00:17:29
Speaker
There's one talking about inpatient, which, of course, eventually there will be no inpatient list. So I'm assuming that will come off. So then all we're going to have left is this unlisted code restriction.
00:17:41
Speaker
And CMS in the past has tried to claim that there's a safety rationale behind this. We're going to be a lot more forceful this year with our advocacy questioning that because both in the hospital outpatient department and even a physician office setting, which a physician office is not,
00:18:00
Speaker
regulated by Medicare. There's no survey and certification process for physician offices performing surgery. They are allowed to bill for unlisted codes as long as they provide documentation about why they needed to use that unlisted code.
00:18:14
Speaker
And ASCs don't have that option. My cynical side says it's because there's 6,500 Medicare-certified ASCs. They don't want the Medicare administrative contractors to be bombarded with a bunch of new requests.
00:18:27
Speaker
I don't see how they can claim, though, that it's a safety issue. And so we're going to continue to advocate for that restriction to be removed. We've asked for the removal of that as much or more so than we asked for the removal of the other criteria.
00:18:41
Speaker
That were removed. That was disappointing that it's still in there and we can't do those unlisted codes on Medicare beneficiaries, but we will continue to advocate for that change. Got it. So more work to come, more advocacy to come on that front for sure.

Quality Reporting Changes for 2026

00:18:56
Speaker
Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about quality reporting in 2026. I know there were some pretty significant changes. What are we seeing there? Sure. a lot of it was as proposed. So we were happy to see finally that ASC20, the COVID-19 vaccination coverage among health care personnel measure, has been removed from the ASC Quality Reporting Program.
00:19:19
Speaker
basically effective immediately. So I know that has been quite the burden for our facilities. And so we're happy to see that removed. And then the three new health equity measures that were just added in 2025 rulemaking have been stripped away. All of this was expected because these and similar measures to these were removed from the inpatient perspective payment system rule, which came out earlier in the year. All of that was expected.
00:19:47
Speaker
There was a measure in the proposed rule that was set to be added. I'm not going to say the whole thing because it's a tongue twister really long, but I will just say it's we refer to it as the information transfer patient reported outcome performance measure. And that was would be another survey.
00:20:06
Speaker
um really asking patients if they received the information that they needed to receive for follow-up care postoperatively. And i think it was like 9 or 12 questions. We asked if you could just add one question to the OSCEP survey, which we already have to do We raised concerns about survey fatigue with that OSCEP survey and the fact that we're getting low turnout, low response rates.
00:20:31
Speaker
A lot of facilities are getting low response rates for that OSCEP survey already. And CMS listened to these concerns and did not adopt this new measure. Who knows what could potentially happen in the future, but at this time, CMS said, we're not going to adopt this measure. So that was a positive.
00:20:48
Speaker
And like I said, really due to ASCA and others, hopefully some of our members used our template letters and really raising concerns about that new measure and opposing its adoption, we were all successful. So thanks to everybody who commented on that.
00:21:05
Speaker
And we talked a little bit about the Medicare Beneficiary Copay Fairness Act. Are there other legislative updates happening aside from the CMS final rule that your team is working on and keeping an eye on as we head into the year?

Legislative Efforts for ASC Advocacy

00:21:17
Speaker
Sure. And, of course, we have a government shutdown, the longest recorded government shutdown in U.S. history. So... Not a lot was being done during that time. but're not Unfortunately, that and some other factors delayed our other piece of legislation. So we still are trying to stay on the hospital market basket. That'll be in our new bill.
00:21:37
Speaker
Fix the weight scaler issue, which we talked about. That'll be in there. And there is a third provision. Proceduralist. Just really, when CMS, more transparency in if they're not going to add codes, why they wouldn't add them.
00:21:51
Speaker
um So we're obviously we got some of that in the rule. Even when they added the codes, they don't necessarily say why they're adding them. They just add them. So a little bit more transparency and in that process. Some other things that we are have our eye on at the federal level, site neutral legislation, we're obviously tracking closely.
00:22:09
Speaker
We don't want any any legislation that would risk access to care. And I know a lot of ASCs here site neutral and they think this is great. I'm going to get paid what hospital outpatient departments are going to get paid.
00:22:21
Speaker
That's not what has been proposed. What's being discussed is lowering everybody to the lowest common denominator. We'll keep our eye on that, update ASCs. ah developments arise. And then there's also this price tag bill, which would require facilities to post price transparency information on their website.
00:22:39
Speaker
There was a big push for similar legislation last session. We pushed back against it because we think that there are others, such as the payers, who are in a better position to tell individuals what they would owe. And we think it would be a burden on facilities and actually more confusing maybe. to the general public than helpful. So we'll continue to try to work with members of Congress to either make that legislation better or preferably just kill the bill, frankly. But those are some of the main things that are on our radar as we head into 2026.
00:23:12
Speaker
Fantastic. And we're very grateful to you and your team for doing that advocacy work and staying on top of those things.

Engagement with Elected Officials

00:23:19
Speaker
Are there any other things in the final rule that our listeners should be aware of, looking into, and preparing for?
00:23:26
Speaker
i'm sure there are. And if people have specific questions about their specific procedures that they perform, I'm happy to answer those. I think that we've really done a pretty good job of hitting on the highlights, considering, as you said, it rules about twice as long, i think, as it has been in previous years. So 1,600 pages is enough for the week to read.
00:23:48
Speaker
there are Not at all. So in addition to that, I wouldn't recommend that our listeners go out and try to read their their own Are there other resources that you recommend people check out? I mentioned the ASCA webinar. That's a great one. Are there other things that they should look to?
00:24:02
Speaker
Sure. We've got a lot of great resources on our website. Like I said, the rate calculator can show you how much your specific facility would be a reimbursed for procedures. We have another document we're putting up there that'll show all of the new codes being added in 2026. We'll have a full rule analysis on there. So there are different resources that we have um On our website, CMS also puts out some, but those are going to be looking at the rule holistically and not maybe as focused in on ASC specific issues. They're also looking at the HOPD components to the rule.
00:24:37
Speaker
But yeah, I think starting out just ASCassociation.org is a good place to start. Awesome. And I'll definitely include these links in the show notes for folks so they can easily find all of those resources. So thank you for that. And then before we wrap I have one final question for you. But what is one thing that ASC leaders can do this week to improve their surgery centers?
00:25:00
Speaker
Wow, that is a good one. This week, I know everybody's just getting back from eating turkey and pumpkin pie, but I think just making sure that you know who your elected officials are and whether or not you do it next week, this week, or early in January please do reach out to us and schedule a facility tour or you can do it virtually, but we'd prefer in person if possible because we're talking about all of these different payment issues. Members of Congress have so much on their plate, so many different policy areas that they're worried about.
00:25:34
Speaker
And so in order to make sure that we stay on their radar and they know it's important to us, We need to be in front of them. And and they love to come and get dolled up in the bunny suit. And so really do encourage facilities to have your elected officials into your facility so they can see all of the great work that you're doing.
00:25:53
Speaker
That's great advice. And I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you taking the time to join us and talk through this really important stuff. And i hope to have you on the podcast again in the future. Sounds good. Thanks so much.

Shifts in Patient Payment Behaviors

00:26:11
Speaker
This week's data dive focuses on pretty significant shift we're seeing in patient payment behavior at ASCs and why ASC leaders should keep this trend top of mind as we head into 2026. And we're not just talking about subtle changes. We're seeing some pretty big shifts in payment behavior, and it's already reshaping ASC revenue strategies.
00:26:31
Speaker
So let's start with the numbers. We took a look at the data from our latest State of the Industry report, and we saw that partial payments jumped from 41.2% to in 2024.
00:26:42
Speaker
That's more than half of patients paying only part of what they owe. And meanwhile, total payments, or patients that have paid in full, dropped from 25.8% to just in one so why is this happening First, patients aren't as financially prepared as we think they might be.
00:27:01
Speaker
Even when estimates are sent out ahead of time, expected deposits fell from 55% in 2023 to
00:27:11
Speaker
This suggests that many patients are arriving the day of with outstanding balances and might need more flexibility and time in making those payments. So in other words, there's a component that may just be outside of surgery center's control.
00:27:25
Speaker
Second, insurance complexity is creating uncertainty. The report shows that only 46% of cases had pre-authorization completed, and in instances where prior off was required, it dropped to 24%.
00:27:38
Speaker
That leaves many patients unsure of what exactly they owe and what insurance will cover, leading to surprise bills and delayed payments down the line. Third, financial stress is contributing to cancellations.
00:27:50
Speaker
In 2024, we saw financial issues as one of the top 10 cited reasons contributing to case cancellations. This isn't just a billing issue. This is a patient access to care problem.
00:28:01
Speaker
So what can ASCs do to try to get ahead of it? First of all, start early. Send a detailed estimates out at least one to two weeks before surgery, and certainly do not wait until the day of to let people know what they owe.
00:28:13
Speaker
Use technology wherever possible. Text estimates, email payment links, provide mobile payment options. It's very easy to not pay someone who makes it difficult to do so.
00:28:24
Speaker
Be flexible. Offer simple automated payment plans to meet patients where they're at and working within their constraints. And most importantly, follow through. Track those partial balances and keep the communication going so that you're able to close that loop as much as possible.
00:28:40
Speaker
Relying on day of or post-op collections is simply not a sustainable strategy. Patients are acting more like consumers, and that means we need to meet them with clarity, flexibility, and ease of access.
00:28:51
Speaker
As we head into the new year, remember that adapting to these trends isn't just about protecting revenue. It's really about enhancing the patient experience and ultimately increasing and improving access to care.

Episode Conclusion and Future Previews

00:29:03
Speaker
And that wraps up today's episode. If you're interested in the topic of patient payments, our next few episodes on the podcast are actually going to be focused on collections, including one that's anesthesia-focused that's coming out before the end of the year.
00:29:16
Speaker
and then we'll have even more coming to you in January. So definitely be sure to check back for those updates. As always, I'm so grateful that of all the things that you could do, you chose to spend a few minutes of your week with us.
00:29:28
Speaker
I hope you found the information today useful, and I hope to see you again next time.