If you are a surgeon looking for more control, block time, revenue and more efficiency, or a hospital in need of a "for-profit" arm and a strategy for keeping your surgeons in the fold, an ambulatory surgery center may be a wonderful investment, as thousands of happy ASC owners will tell you. Then again, it may be one of the worst moves you ever made. Surgeons tend to hear a lot more about successes than failures. But we know of a Northeastern center that was built but never opened, an ASC in the Southeast that was open for only a year before closing, and a gorgeous 30,000 square foot center that's sitting empty to this day. Some experts estimate that as many as a third of all ASCs lose money.