February 12, 2025- As care increasingly shifts from the inpatient to outpatient setting, U.S. News is committed to helping patients identify high quality surgery centers for the most commonly performed outpatient procedures. In 2024, U.S. News released the inaugural edition of the Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers ratings based on risk-adjusted, objective outcomes such as post-procedure complications, emergency department visits, unplanned inpatient admissions, and other undesirable results.
The second edition of the ratings will be published on usnews.com on March 18, 2025. Beginning February 20, ASC operators will be able to review embargoed results for their facility(s) by logging into the U.S. News Healthcare Dashboard. The embargoed methodology report for the 2025 ratings will be available along with embargoed results.
This year, to increase patient population homogeneity and improve outcome representativeness, U.S. News has made several methodological changes, as outlined below:
- Facilities that did not perform key surgical orthopedic and/or spine operations for traditional Medicare beneficiaries will not be rated in Orthopedics & Spine in 2025.
- Following feedback from experts, secondary membranous cataract surgery will no longer be included in the procedures evaluated in the Ophthalmology specialty.
- The emergency department visit outcome measure will not be used to evaluate ASCs in Ophthalmology in 2025. For some patients in that specialty, U.S. News couldn’t determine if an ED visit occurred soon after their surgery.
These changes and more details about the methodology will be discussed in a live virtual event on February 18, from 1-2 pm Eastern Time. Questions or feedback regarding Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers can be emailed to ascmethodology@usnews.com.