Becker’s Healthcare -- Spine and Orthopedic Podcast
Jeffrey Flynn, President of the New York State Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers
07 Dec 2025
This episode recorded live at Becker’s 31st Annual The Business and Operations of ASCs features Jeffrey Flynn, President of the New York State Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers. He shares insights on market growth, the rising role of AI and robotics, and how partnerships with health systems are shaping patient care and operational efficiency in the ASC space.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is Grace Lynn Culler with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, and we are recording live at the 31st Annual Business and Operations of ASCs. I'm currently joined by Andrew Lovewell, who is the CEO at Columbia Orthopedic Group. So, Andrew, thanks for being here. To kick us off, can you please share a little bit about yourself and your work in the ASC space?
Yeah, my name's Andrew Lovewall. I'm the CEO of Columbia Orthopedic Group. We are a large private practice MSK ortho group in the state of Missouri. Own a very large, super successful ASC, imaging center, pharmacy, DME, real estate investment, PBM, telehealth company, kind of everything we have that can touch the patient and increase our value that we deliver to our patients.
So I've been in the healthcare space About 16 years in academics, also ASC management, now the private practice space. So excited for our discussion today.
Wonderful. And let's start off talking about the ASC market. In the U.S., this is projected to reach $60.8 billion by 2030 and continues to experience strong year-over-year growth. So from your perspective, what are the most significant trends and market forces driving this expansion and how should ASC leaders be preparing today?
Yeah, I think that one of the big things that's driving that growth is the migration of cases from the hospital to the ASC space. You know, we see this happening a lot in the ortho and MSK space with spine and total joints. See this happening in the cardiology space as well. I think also one of the big things that's kind of making that transition possible is
Is in America, you know, a lot of there's a lot of self-funded health plans, you know, employer sponsored health care. So employers are trying to save cost on what they're providing for their employees. And they've shifted a lot of their demand towards ASC space. You saw that happen with Walmart a few years ago with their Center of Excellence program.
You know, debated on whether or not that was successful based on who they used. You're also seeing that happen with, you know, people picking GI type places that are in the ASC space over hospitals. I would see a lot more employers kind of make that demand on how cases get shifted to the ASC.
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Chapter 2: What trends are driving growth in the ASC market?
And then you're going to find a partner for that. So how do you figure out what's key for you and kind of inspecting or investigating the right partner at the right time is going to be very key.
And is there anything we haven't touched on yet that you would like to share? Any final thoughts as we wrap up this podcast episode?
Yeah, sure. I think one of the final kind of takeaways I would give on the ASC side of things is, you know, understand that you have power and you have value that's very hard to match because what we can do in an ASC is, versus a hospital or a larger tertiary care center is so valuable. Employers want it.
So going out and providing that education to employers to make sure they're well aware of the things that you guys can provide is key. Making sure you don't give that up to the payers, that power and that value you have, because the payers are going to try to diminish what we do as an ASC. So
You know, bringing in the medical director for the, you know, Blue Cross plan on your state, you know, talking to UnitedHealthcare, trying to get more collaboration through the payers is going to be a big deal. And I think extremely important in your success. So just recognizing that what you do is extremely valuable. It's a huge part of our business.
opportunity to bend the cost curve of health care just in general. So making sure you're informed, you know, you're reading Becker's, doing the things, you know, that continue to educate you as an ASC administrator or owner is very essential.
So I would just encourage people, you know, to be informed, be on top of the information and know exactly what you can provide to the employer group, to the insurance, to all those, you know, stakeholders is going to be a very big thing to keep track of.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing these thoughts and insights on the podcast. Again, we are recording live at the 31st Annual Business and Operations of ASCs.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
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