If you plan to seek financing for your new ambulatory surgical center this year, there's both good news and bad.

The good news: Money is available for solid projects, and more lenders are competing for your business, forcing them to be more aggressive in the terms they offer (10-year terms and limited guarantees, for example). The bad news: This is a maturing market with obvious failures. That, coupled with the prospect of declining Medicare reimbursements for certain specialties performed in ambulatory surgical centers in 2008, means greater scrutiny for loan proposals. Risk-free financing has also gotten harder to come by.