Become Well-known In Your Hometown
Most people associate health care with hospitals and aren't aware of the benefits of freestanding outpatient surgery centers. Here's some advice for marketing your facility to your community.

The center's owners should go out to educate the public (including local industry, referring physicians and residents) about ambulatory surgery. They can do this by going to different local civic clubs and talking about their centers, working with the local chamber of commerce or having their staff at a health fair to take blood pressures and distribute brochures about the advantages of outpatient surgery. Not only will this potentially bring more patients into your facility, it will also make the self-insured industries aware of how much more cost-efficient you are. That can help you secure more contracts.

You may also want to promote yourself to the local physicians, especially if you're a multi-specialty facility and if there are other places they can perform surgeries. Some great ways to do this are by hosting lunch-and-learn sessions where you educate the schedulers in physician offices about your facility or by going to their practices and meeting them face-to-face.

Gayle Evans, RN, MBA, CNOR
Continuum Healthcare Consultants
Kennesaw, Ga.
gevans@continuumhealthconsult.com