While surgical centers may present benefits with regard to patient convenience and cost-savings, patients should be aware that these benefits come with increased risks to their safety. A lack of regulations and treatment delays could lead to even routine procedures causing a lifetime of suffering.

 

At the Law Office of Alvin F. de Levie & Associates, our team of experienced personal injury attorneys has a history of representing victims of medical malpractice and surgical errors throughout the Commonwealth. If you or a loved one has suffered a catastrophic injury as a result of medical negligence at a surgical center, please call us, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at (844) 777-2529.   We practice throughout Central and Western Pennsylvania and, with offices in State College, Bellefonte, Lock Haven and Philadelphia, we are always available to meet with you in person.

 

Surgery centers (sometimes referred to as ambulatory surgery centers, outpatient surgery centers, or same-day surgery centers) are medical facilities where patients receive surgical procedures that typically would not require an overnight stay at a hospital. Because the surgeries performed at these centers are not supposed to be complicated and do not require inpatient hospitalization, the costs associated with these surgeries are often far less than if they had been performed in the hospital environment.  

 

The reduced costs and quick turnaround associated with surgery centers has significantly increased their popularity, especially amongst health insurers and politicians eager to find ways to reduce increasingly out-of-control healthcare costs. The number of surgery centers are increased rapidly: there are currently 5,596 Medicare-certified surgical centers in the United States, 244 of which are here in Pennsylvania. By contrast, there are 5,564 registered hospitals in the United States. 

 

While the ability to perform same-day surgeries at much lower costs seems like a dream come true, in the current healthcare environment, several factors unique to surgery centers pose an increased risk to patients:

 

-        Lack of Regulation: Unlike hospitals, which have traditionally been subject to a host of regulations geared toward patient safety, regulation of surgical centers has been lax. Medicare and Federal and State government entities have been afraid of burdening surgical centers with too many regulations for fear of increasing costs. Recent reporting by The Scientific American and USA Today have highlighted the fact that most surgery centers are not subject to the same reporting requirements as hospitals. Therefore, most of them do not report data on infection rates, hospital transfers, or even deaths to Federal or State Authorities. The lack of reporting leads to a lack of information for healthcare consumers, who may elect to have surgical procedures at a surgery centers without being able to determine the risks of infection, complications or death posed by a given center.

-        Increasingly Risky Surgeries: Surgery centers were initially focused on providing relatively routine and simple surgeries, such as tonsillectomies, retina repairs, and colonoscopies with biopsies. However, the surgeons who own these facilities and the organizations that represent them on the political stage have been eager to expand the kinds and numbers of surgeries they perform to increase profits. State and Federal regulators have been all too happy to oblige and to allow risky surgeries, including complex spine surgeries.   Due to the “same-day” nature of these surgical centers, many patients receiving more complex surgeries are being sent home before they are ready, causing serious complications and even death.

-        Discrepancies in Access to Hospital Care: While most surgical centers are required to have an agreement for the transfer of patients to local hospitals in an emergency, a patient’s life may well depend on where the surgery center is located. In a recent report by the Kaiser Health Network, it was found that, in some rural areas, the nearest hospital may be over 15 miles away from the surgical center. While other centers may be closer to hospitals, it can sometimes take up to a half-an-hour for an emergency patient to finally be transferred to a hospital once 911 has been called. In either case, the delay in care places patients who have suffered a surgery gone wrong or medical error at a much higher risk for serious complications and death than if they had their surgery performed at the hospital.  

 

Again, if you or a loved one has suffered a catastrophic injury as a result of medical negligence at a surgical center, please call us, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at (844) 777-2529.   We practice throughout Central and Western Pennsylvania and, with offices in State College, Bellefonte, Lock Haven and Philadelphia, we are always available to meet with you in person.