Medtronic delivers solutions to ASC customers and spurs growth through technology, efficiency and value
Repertoire Magazine – August 2021
As hospitals experienced the surge of COVID-19 patients during the height of the pandemic, business volumes for ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) swelled. Outpatient procedures were pushed to ASCs, which face unique clinical, operational and financial challenges. But medtech companies like Medtronic helped navigate these obstacles.
“We delivered innovative solutions to our ASC customers during the onset of COVID-19,” said Bob Cannon, Medtronic Vice President, ASC Channel Management and Sales, U.S. Market. “We proactively offered flexible business models to help offset the challenges ASCs faced throughout 2020.”
ASCs are often limited on capital reserves to meet obligations or make the necessary investments to keep pace with the latest technologies. Purchasing capital equipment such as robotics, operating room beds, surgical lights, scrub sinks and C-Arms can be challenging due to cash outlay, financing requirements and credit terms.
Plus, reimbursements for procedures can be significantly less in ASCs when compared to the hospital setting for many procedures, and price sensitivity can be heightened due to this economic reality. ASCs also have far less storage capacity for products utilized during their day-to-day operations.
“It’s common that purchase practices are done the day before a procedure or the vendor is asked to carry in product the day of a procedure,” Cannon said. “By partnering with Medtronic and leveraging purchasing scale across the entire portfolio, ASCs can unlock unmatched technology, service, efficiency and value, and focus on quality, patient outcomes and profitability that enables growth.”
This year, ASCs are returning to a more normal course of business and Medtronic is committed to being the partner of choice for ASCs across the nation. ASCs have an important role to play in expanding access to affordable, efficient and high-quality patient care.
“ASCs offer patients a site of service that promotes quality, efficiency and value,” Cannon said. “Partnering with Medtronic offers ASCs the ability to improve quality with our technologies, drive efficiency through our broad portfolio and have a ‘one-stop shop’ to meet supply chain goals at a lower cost by concentrating volume with a single source partner.”
Medtronic plays big and small in the ASC market through its broad portfolio and can meet the various needs of large national and regional chain ASCs, while also being nimble enough to support the local, physician-owned ASCs in high volume markets.
Its ASC team is deployed top down through an enterprise team focused on select large national and regional chain ASCs. Medtronic also has field teams within certain businesses that are focused on specific product strategies for local target markets with a concentration of ASCs with high procedural volume.
“We have long-standing partnerships with the distribution sales channel, and we work closely with distributors in many of our therapies,” said Christopher Stelter, Medtronic Senior Director of Distribution, U.S. Market. “Our distributors also have long-standing relationships with our mutual customers, including those in the ASC market. There are efficiencies to be gained by all parties by using the capabilities of our distributor partners.”
Stelter explained that in many cases, the distribution channel is utilized as the most effective choice for distributing their therapies to their ASC customers. “One of the many benefits of working with distribution is that customers can often receive product either the same day or next day when ordering through a distributor,” Stelter said. “Distributors also carry a buffer of inventory to help ensure high fill rates and smooth any potential product flow disruptions that can be created by natural disasters like flooding, fires or pandemics.”
Supply chain resilience and business continuity are always top priorities and Medtronic has hosted panels with its customers focused on those and on its technology, service and business model. For example, in the neuroscience specialties, Medtronic recently held a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) Advisory Panel with physician equity owners in the pain and spine specialties.
“The feedback was candid, clear and helpful in understanding our strengths and areas of opportunity to better address ASC needs,” Cannon said. “We are working to reinforce our areas of strength, while always seeking ways to improve.”
Medtronic is also developing new and novel patient education and access programs to go alongside ASC market development programs to support growth.
“ASCs flourish when quality, efficiency and value intersect with patient awareness and access,” Cannon said. “We believe we can combine efforts with our ASC partners and create an unmatched ecosystem where all the elements for a successful ASC meet.”
To learn more, go to: Medtronic.com/asc