W. Mark Wainner has been elected president of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA), the industry group recently announced.
Alexandria, Virginia-based ASCA is a national trade association that represents more than 6,200 Medicare-certified ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) across the United States. The group plays an important role in working with the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and lawmakers to shape ASC policy – a mission that has grown in importance as the market has dramatically expanded.
Wainner is the senior director of ambulatory surgery center acquisition and development at Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH), which develops and operates health care delivery systems in 40 distinct markets across 15 states.
Community Health Systems owns or leases 71 affiliated hospitals with approximately 12,000 beds. Its overall network is made up of more than 1,000 sites of care, including physician practices, urgent care centers, freestanding emergency departments, occupational medicine clinics, imaging centers, cancer centers and ASCs.
“Outpatient surgery centers have the distinction of both improving the patient experience and lowering costs for millions of curative, life-extending and life-saving surgeries,” Wainner said in a statement. “I’m very proud of my 30-year career in this field, and I now have the great honor of being chosen to lead ASCA, the premier advocacy organization for this vital segment of health care.”
Wainner received the unanimous support of the ASCA board at the association’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida. He’ll lead the organization for a two-year term, according to ASCA.
Wainner has been a member of the ASCA board since 2018, and he previously served as treasurer. During his career, he has also held leadership positions at Tennessee Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, including a term as president.
Heading into his time as ASCA president, Wainner is focused on three main goals, he said.
Those goals include focusing on patient safety and outcomes, advocating for strong ASC reimbursement, and strengthening the pool of health care talent going into the ASC space.
“First and foremost, we need to continue to improve upon our excellent record of patient safety and outcomes through both smart regulation and medical excellence,” Wainner said. “Next, I would like to be a champion for correcting some of the inequities in the compensation for the care we provide, while also guarding against anything that might hurt or hinder the ability of surgeons to operate their centers and care for their patients using their best clinical judgments. And last, I think it’s vitally important that we support both public and private initiatives to expand education and training of medical personnel so that we can meet the healthcare demands of our growing and aging population.”
