Ophthalmology continues to move toward ASC and office-based surgery

In my now 40 years of ophthalmology practice, I have always had access to a hospital-based operating suite, an ASC-based operating suite and an office-based operating suite. I have also always done some minor surgical procedures in my clinic examination lane and worked in a hybrid, a corporate-owned ASC with HOPD designation and reimbursement. So, for me, I have five choices for every surgical procedure I schedule.I started in Dallas in private practice from 1978 to 1980 and worked in several hospitals, an ASC designated as an HOPD (Mary Shiels Eye Hospital), and we had an office-based OR with a Zeiss microscope where we did minor intraocular procedures including limbal and pars plana needle posterior capsulotomies (pre-YAG laser era). We also did some minor procedures in our examination lanes. I then joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota for 10 years from 1980 to 1989. We also had all five OR environments available, and we used them all. In our office-based OR, we did many intraocular procedures including anterior chamber and vitreous cultures, intraocular injections, and glaucoma filtration revisions and needling.