Image courtesy of Joint Replacement Center of LouisianaThe Joint Replacement Center of Louisiana opened in Lake Charles in January 2023. Just two years later, the center has experienced 20% year-over-year growth in 2025 and expanded to include pain injections, oral maxillofacial dentistry and cosmetic plastic surgery.
ASC News interviewed Administrator Jenny Bono to learn more about the center’s strategy and upcoming plans for further growth and expansion.
The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.
Can you provide an overview of your Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) and its core focus?
The Joint Replacement Center of Louisiana was conceived about 12 to 14 years ago. In the history of robotic joint replacement, everything was hospital-based. The orthopedists who eventually opened the ASC wanted to move to an outpatient setting to reduce discharge times. So, they built this outpatient program in conjunction with a hospital. However, they didn’t give up on the vision of owning an ASC.
In January of 2023, they opened the Joint Replacement Center of Louisiana. We have three operating rooms (ORs) with 10 pre- and post-operative bays. It’s an all-in-one boutique facility that is streamlined and the same nurses are there when you come in as when you’re discharged. We do a lot of education, both pre- and post-operatively. We want our patients to feel like family, get to know the nurses and be comfortable.
Image courtesy of Joint Replacement Center of Louisiana
What are some of the top highlights and achievements for your ASC in 2025?
We have grown rapidly. We’re looking at about a 20% year-over-year increase. So, that’s what we’re on pace for in these final three months of the year.
We were built from the ground up – construction, policies and procedures – everything was built from the ground up with a small internal team. We did have the support of Compass Surgical Partners as our management company. But all that growth really took off in 2025, and we’ve continued to grow and stabilize our nursing and clinical teams.
We’ve actually had other specialties come to us this year and ask for OR time. We’ve brought in pain injections, some oral maxillofacial dentistry, as well as cosmetic plastic surgery. All of those areas were focused on bringing that concierge medicine, that boutique environment, to their patients, and so we were happy to be sought out. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we’d open the doors to those service lines, but it’s been a perfect fit for our facility and their patients.
Could you discuss your recent technology investments and how they align with your highlights?
Since this place was built and focused on total joint replacements, total knees, hips and shoulders, our surgeon partners and Compass brought in the Mako 4.0 this year. Our surgeons worked on the 3.10 and 3.11 editions of the Mako in the last 14 years of their careers, but with the 4.0, they wanted to advance and be at the forefront of that technology; they were the first to bring it to the state of Louisiana. So, that’s been the primary investment.
From there, we looked at operational excellence and how we can use our software to improve processes. We use HST as our electronic medical records provider and are looking into other programs within the HST family to optimize our processes and workflow throughput. It’s the most advanced that I’ve seen in health care, especially for a company this small. People have been committed to that investment in OR efficiencies, patient safety and the ability to use that data for additional opportunities within those sectors, as well as for efficiency gains.
What is the return on investment (ROI) for robotics in your ASC, and why do you believe investing in this technology is valuable?
From an ROI standpoint, a surgeon would tell you that continuity of care is worth the investment, regardless of the financials. We look at that input and aim for the same concise results for patient care and outcomes, which also lead to efficiencies for us.
What emerging trends do you see shaping the ASC industry in 2026?
From a service line perspective, [ASCs will] look at some of the quicker, lower-cost cases. You’ll see specialties such as replacements and robotics. Still, ASCs will want to diversify by seeking the highest ROI, low cost and low capital outlay, while maximizing utilization.
ASCs will be looking at creative opportunities. You’re going to see improvement or growth in the general surgery area, ophthalmology and [ear, nose and throat] as well. That’s not something we’re looking at, but I have explored those service lines, and they are low-cost investments to bring them into an ASC. Given the volume it could support, it’s an advantage for an ASC.
What are your goals and strategic plans for the remainder of 2025?
The rest of the year is focused. We’ve done a phenomenal job increasing volume and creating opportunities to fill OR time. We’ve also done a really good job this year bringing in service lines that weren’t even an opportunity in 2024.
In the fourth quarter, we’ve started to focus on streamlining. We’re asking questions like, are we scheduling? Where are our cost measures? Where are the saving opportunities? Are we using our GPO to the best of our ability? We were able to identify about $200,000 in annual savings by making a few changes in contracts, product and vendor selections. So, deep-diving into that now is our fourth-quarter focus.
In February, we’ll be going through our three-year reaccreditation. We are also renegotiating our payer contracts and evaluating what we have been able to do to save these payers [by moving cases] from the hospital to the ASC. Many of our commercial payers had never had, or didn’t have, the data to support proper rates for joint replacement in an ASC setting. And now we can show them how much volume we increased.
About 45% of our volume is Blue Cross Blue Shield. We now have this data to leverage and show them we are a good partner. We have brought over 1,500 joint replacement cases into an ASC model. That saves those commercial payers substantially, and so we’re able to quantify that for them now and actually have a seat at the table to negotiate.
They came to us about three months ago after reviewing the data, and said they saw a savings and wanted to share that with us. As a result, they increased our rate by 3%.
We’re also focused on where Medicare is headed with site neutrality. Everybody believes it’s on the horizon. Now we’re starting to get health systems and hospitals wanting to talk. So that is something we’re open to exploring in 2026. Of course, it’s got to be the right agreement. It’s got to be a win for all parties.
What are you most passionate about for the ASC in 2026?
I’m most passionate about focusing on all this growth and stabilizing it, continuing to do what we do better than our counterparts, and really focusing on the patient; 2026 is about optimizing the efforts we put in during the last year.
