Our aggressive Advocacy is all about Leadership – In Defining Your ASC Future. Since our founding, OOSS has assumed the exclusive role of representing the national interests of ophthalmic led ASCs and the patients you serve. OOSS is heavily involved in Federal and state advocacy and through your support we have are achieving significant victories. In the coming year, the powerful combination of legislation and market conditions will affect your ASC opportunities in ways never seen before! We are Your Society for Leadership and Advocacy.

OOSS is the organization that represents the surgeon owners and surgeon utilizers of ophthalmic ambulatory surgery centers. OOSS governmental and socio-economic activities focus on:

• Ensuring that the new Medicare ASC payment system provides stability and fair reimbursement for ophthalmic ASCs and is appropriately implemented by CMS. All ophthalmic surgical services should be eligible for Medicare ASC facility reimbursement and facility fees should be linked to the rates paid to hospital outpatient departments; should be updated annually; and ASCs should receive the same adjustments paid to hospitals for new and innovative medical devices and drugs.
• Preserving the ability of ophthalmic surgeons to own and refer their patients to ASCs.
• Ensuring that new Medicare ASC conditions of coverage provide for optimal quality, patient safety, and ASC efficiency.
• Promoting federal policies that will render innovative medical devices and drugs accessible to the Medicare beneficiary in the ASC.
• Assisting facilities in all aspects of practice management, including payer contracting, best business practices, and marketing.

OOSS is at the forefront of representing the interests of progressive ophthalmic surgeons as federal policymakers put the final touches on a regulation that will proscribe how ophthalmic ASCs are paid and regulated. OOSS is vigilant in ensuring that the hospital industry is not successful in its efforts to prohibit our ability to own and treat our patients at ASCs. Your membership in OOSS is a testament to the importance of these issues. Given the magnitude of OOSS’s legislative and regulatory agenda this year, it is all the more important that you strongly consider elevating your membership to become a member of OOSS’s President’s Council.

How important are these issues to the OOSS leadership? We’ve hired our lobbyist of the past 25 years, Michael Romansky, as our full-time advocate for our organization. Under his direction, we have accomplished a great deal these past few years. OOSS sponsors legislation that provides critical guidance to CMS as it develops the new payment system for ASCs.  The proposed rule issued by CMS last summer incorporated many of the principles advocated by OOSS for a decade. ASC payments are linked to hospital outpatient department rates. ASCs receive annual cost-of-living updates. Virtually every ophthalmic surgical procedure now is eligible for facility payment. Cataract facility fees increase every year; payment for vitreoretinal services increased by 50 percent.

For more information, please visit the following links:

Washington Update Online: Headlines
Ask MIKE!
Outlook Magazine Online
President's Council Membership
Resources