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March 16, 2007
Fremont Tribune
New facility
brings more options
By Russ Krebs/Tribune Staff
Area residents soon will have a new choice when it comes to having
an outpatient operation.
The Fremont Surgical Center, being built at 840 E. 29th St., is
expected to open this summer for procedures ranging from inserting
ear tubes to shoulder or knee reconstruction. Many cataract surgeries
and colonoscopies are expected.
“We’re looking to take possession (of the building)
in May,” said Daren Smith, administrator of the Fremont
Surgical Center. “We’d like to start performing surgery
in July.”
The $5 million project is a partnership between a group of 13 Fremont
doctors of varying specialties and Dodge County Health Care. Dodge
County Health Care is a non-profit organization developed to promote
healthcare in Dodge and surrounding counties. Fremont Area Medical
Center is not directly involved in the Fremont Surgical Center,
but was instrumental in helping form Dodge County Health Care,
hospital officials said.
“This is probably one of the last communities this size to
get a surgical center,” Smith said. “It will allow
people more freedom in scheduling surgeries.”
The building will house two full-time operating rooms and two procedure
rooms. Some operations can be performed in one of the procedure
rooms.
“It gives people the opportunity to go somewhere that’s
specialized,” Smith said. “If it’s only focussed
on surgery, we’re going to do it the best we can.”
He said patients will receive just one bill for services instead
of bills from multiple departments with hospitals. Because of lower
overhead, he said similar surgical centers are able to charge about
20 percent less than hospitals.
“You’re co-pay is going to be less and you’re
more than likely to get the time you want to have your surgery,” Smith
said.
All patients will be pre-screened to make sure they are reasonably
healthy and that they wouldn’t require extra services available
at a hospital. All surgeries at the facility will be elective and
non-emergency, with no overnight stays.
“Everybody leaves at the end of the day,” Smith said.
Full anesthesia will be available and any time a patient is present
a minimum of one physician, an anesthesiologist, will be there.
He said the Fremont Surgical Center will employ 20-25 people ranging
from nurses to office staff. An April 5 employment fair is planned
at the Holiday Inn Express.
Smith said projections are for about 3,500 procedures per year,
or about 80 percent of the elective surgeries normally performed
at FAMC. Surgeries mostly will be scheduled from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Monday through Friday, but later or earlier procedures can be accommodated,
he said.
Higher risk patients will be required to have their surgery at
a hospital and patients will have a choice of whether to use the
Fremont Surgical Center or a hospital. Physicians in the partnership
are not allowed to only push the Surgical Center and none have
given up rights at FAMC.
“We do have a transfer agreement with (FAMC) if there are
any complications we can’t handle,” Smith said. |
