How ACESA's Surgical Assistant Program gives

you the power to solve 3 of the most critical issues... your liability, credentialing, and budget!

 

“Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.”  –Henry J. Kaiser, CEO, Kaiser Steel

 

Finally, surgical training for your staff that works for YOU!

If there was a staff training program that was easy on your budget and also gave you tools and leverage for successful budget management, would you want it?

 

“Perhaps you don’t have Surgical Assistants on your staff. Just give me a few minutes and I’ll show you, not only how relevant the training is for your OR, but how key it is to solving your most pressing issues.

 

If I’m being completely honest, I have to admit I didn’t develop the ACESA Surgical Assistant Program to benefit management. Only later did I discover how powerfully effective the program is in solving OR management’s most stubborn problems.

 

My goal was to create a way for your staff to experience real breakthroughs meant to give them success that was equal to or better than mine. Remarkably, the record shows my students have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

 

Can you imagine a more satisfying occupation than helping others succeed and only then do you get to succeed? It motivates me to the core and it makes me feel great everyday. I’m really excited when I picture you getting the same great feeling after you help your staff advance with the ACESA program!

 

As you read every word on this web page, you are going to discover eye-opening facts and common-sense solutions that reveal the many ways you benefit. But as excited as you are going to get, you may still need the support of upper management in order to purchase this training for your staff. So look for how ACESA training fulfills the missions of hospital CEOs and Risk Managers.

 

Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are at the extent to which everybody benefits from training originally designed to enhance employee careers and promote improved surgical care. But I am delighted with it and I can’t wait to see how you, your staff, and your facility all flourish as a result of your innovative problem solving.”   -Dan Bump, ACESA Founder

 

Call 1-888-221-5992 for details.

 

Sleep like a babe after you have taken

decisive action to reduce your surgical risk and liability!

Serious OR professionals with weighty responsibilities like you, will lose sleep worrying about how…

 

• Your hospital’s financial health can be put at risk in a sue-happy society,

• You and your staff may be held personally responsible in a malpractice claim, and

• Your career is at stake, can be ruined, and you can lose your home and other assets.

 

You’ll agree this is scary stuff – but it’s real! Let’s face it. If your hospital is like most in the country:

 

• Your Surgical Techs and OR Nurses must first assist from time to time.

• Perhaps the scheduled assistant is late or doesn't show up at all. Or maybe you have to assign someone on your staff to first assist in order to make the surgery schedule run smoothly.

• Although trained surgery professionals, your techs and nurses lack formal first assistant training and an assisting credential.

• Many hospitals deflect attention away from this training deficit by logging them in the operative report as a second scrub instead of first assistant.

 

This is a common dilemma in hospitals nationwide. But it is very problematic in medical/legal terms. A smart lawyer would use this information to weaken or destroy your defense in a malpractice case. He'd likely claim the OR record was falsified because the title 'second scrub' doesn't tell the truth about the task your employee was performing. A second scrub is another person to hand instruments perhaps to another team or to back up the first scrub who may be in training or just in need of assistance.

 

Unfortunately, many OR Managers have been forced to choose between the least of two evils – write the assistant in as the second scrub or risk being exposed for using staff to first assist when they weren’t properly trained for it. Now, there is a more palatable third option that lets you continue and even extend this assisting service and effectively handle both problems with no side liability issues to worry about.

 

• Properly train and certify your staff to first assist with the ACESA program

• Enjoy increased flexibility to plug them into the first assistant position as needed

• Accurately record the first assistant as the first assistant, not as the second scrub

• Stop worrying about any future consequences related to training and accurate recording issues

 

And here is unexpected plus. ACESA will prepare your staff for high-level surgical performance, more like an expert performs and not like clumsy new assistants do. Surgical risk is dramatically reduced because they won't make the mistakes common to untrained or newly trained assistants.

 

Imagine how reducing your risk and liability contributes to the wellbeing of your staff and facility (and to your good night’s sleep).

 

Less legal exposure! “This is a great comprehensive and in-depth program. The six day class far exceeded my expectations and my surgeon's expectations as well. The video setup in conjunction with the tying trainer made learning all of the different techniques quick, easy, and most importantly – low stress!!! Validation is now available to me to back up my experience. The surgeons will have more confidence in my abilities and I will have less legal exposure. I believe this six day Surgical SkillLab has profoundly impacted my ability to function as a competent, trained, and safe assistant. I know my patients, my facility, and my surgeons will greatly benefit from this experience as well. As an RN, being the patient’s advocate is my utmost responsibility. Taking this class has made me acutely aware of how an untrained assistant places the patient in jeopardy.”      Stacey Parum, RN, CNOR, Director of Surgical Services    Scenic Mountain Medical Center    Big Spring, TX

 

Call 1-888-221-5992 for details.

 

We make it simple for your entire staff

to earn a recognized surgical assisting credential.

Simple doesn’t mean easy. We do make every effort to offer training ease and convenience you only get with ACESA. But our students do have to study, learn new things, and practice skills they didn’t have before. Earning a credential may not be completely easy but it is simple.

 

The gold standard is proper training and recognized credential. It’s what they look for in every Medical Staff Office, by the Joint Commission, and in the courts when there is a malpractice claim. Until recently, two categories of otherwise qualified healthcare professionals have been held back from reaching for this gold standard:

 

• On-the-job trained Surgical Techs are being required to take some extra college-level courses before they can take an approved Surgical Assistant Program like ACESA’s. This would mean going to a community college for night and weekend classes. Happily, these classes are now available through ACESA and we make it easy. We just, in effect, add 4-6 months of distance-learning studies to the assisting program.

• AD and Diploma Nurses are in a unique dilemma. They should be considered highly qualified to take a program and be eligible to sit for the certification exam. However, here is a list of things they would have to do after they complete an AORN accepted program in order to be able to sit for the CRNFA exam (Certified RN First Assistant):

           1)  Earn a CNOR

           2)  Go back to the university and get a BSN

           3)  Get 2,000 hours of documented first assisting experience

           4)  Then sit for the CRNFA exam (by then you may first need a refresher course)

Needless to say, this is a tough way to go and it discourages a lot of good people from even trying. In fact, if an ADN or Diploma Nurse on your staff takes one of the AORN accepted RNFA programs, they won’t be able to get certified anywhere upon graduation or upon getting 2,000 hours of experience. They would be stuck with either no assisting certification or going back to college for years.

 

ACESA does not require a BSN or CNOR. Our program is also approved by ABSA (the American Board of Surgical Assistants) and we are working on other approvals as well. The ABSA certifying board also does not require a BSN, CNOR, or 2,000 hours of experience. The only requirement is completion of an approved Surgical Assistant Program like ACESA and a few added courses which most, if not all, RNs already have.

 

All ACESA graduates can earn the nationally recognized credential SA-C (Surgical Assistant – Certified). So an ADN who passed the ABSA certifying exam could proudly wear the title RN, SA-C. Your techs could be titled ST, SA-C.

 

Are you starting to get a feel for how you, your staff, your surgeons, and your hospital benefit from proper surgical assistant training?

 

 

Call 1-888-221-5992 for details.

 

Learned amazing amount in just 6 days! “I enjoyed the interaction of team teaching. Loved the extreme patience with which you handled knot tying.  I was amazed at how much a person could learn in six days.”    John Jorgensen, Director of Surgical Services    Sioux Valley Vermillion Hospital    Vermillion, SD

 

I recommend it to my co-workers! “Dan, you’re an excellent teacher, I really learned a lot. Why didn’t you become a surgeon? It was really nice to learn something you haven’t seen and done before. In case of emergency, I will know how to anticipate what the surgeon needs. It took me a long time to familiarize myself with suturing technique and use of loupes in microvascular surgery but I made it and I’m happy with the experience I had. I have already recommended this class to my co-workers. Thank you very much.”       Ceferina Brinquis, OR Manager    Cibola General Hospital    Grants, NM

 

 

What are 5 ways ACESA's Surgical Assistant

Program can boost your budget managing savvy?

If a good part of your day is consumed toiling

over a budget, reading this web page could be the best

thing that’s happened to you in a long time!

  

In a time when hospitals are struggling financially and many close, one of the first things to go may be expensive staff education. ACESA introduces training that is:

 

• Easy on your budget

• Pays for itself

• Increases your surgical revenue

 

This is the kind of training you don't put off. You invest in it even more in hard financial times. When your OR Nurses and Surgical Techs are properly trained to first assist in surgery, they cease being payroll expenses and become revenue generators. Continue reading and you’ll uncover…

 

• The best way to successfully bill for your Surgical Assistants and maximize reimbursements

• How to find a $200,000 increase in surgical revenue for each person you register in the Surgical Assistant Program. Question: now how many people do you want to register?

• 4 follow-up methods for getting the most from your training investment

• And much more…

 

 

#1

The ACESA program is easy on your budget.

The ACESA Surgical Assistant Program is among the least expensive assisting programs in the country. We could charge much more considering what others are charging. But we keep it affordable for individuals who pay for the program themselves. We also want to keep the price down so hospitals with the so-called ‘big pockets’ can fit the program into their budget for their entire OR staff.

 

The tuition at the time of this writing is just $4,995 and of course it is subject to change without notice. If you’ve been entrusted with a very limited budget, you may consider just putting your staff through the ACESA 6-day Surgical SkillLab part of the Surgical Assistant Program.

 

The lab alone is by no means the full answer to the liability issue but it is a huge step forward. Your staff will be able to demonstrate specific surgical assistant training and they will be able to perform demonstrably better in surgery when they assist and even when they scrub.

 

• The SkillLab is half the tuition of the full program.

• The lab is a 6-day quick fix to the liability and risk issue.

• Later, when the budget allows, you can enroll your staff in the rest of the program and obtain the formal training and national certification – the complete solution.

 

 

#2

Assistant billing turns your staff into Revenue Generators!

Your current staff can increase revenue by $200,000 per year each! And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Not only is the Surgical Assistant Program budget-friendly, it pays for itself with plenty left over. Here is just one way. You can get paid for the assisting service far more than you probably think you can. Let’s take an ACL Reconstruction as one example.

 

• Some hospitals don’t charge anything when they put one of their staff in the room to first assist.

• Others just charge for assigning an extra person to the room.

• If you do charge for an extra person, maybe you get $150 for 2 hours.

• If you bill for that assistant the way we do for our freelance Surgical Assistant clients, you could expect to receive $900 to $1,200! That’s a lot of money left on the table.

• In fact, 40 hours a week spent first assisting should yield an average of $200,000 to $300,000 by the end of a year.

• If you decide to train your entire staff to assist, this one management decision may increase surgical revenue 3–5 million dollars or more.

 

A few hospitals to our knowledge have tried to bill like we do and have failed. So, let’s describe what can go wrong and what ACESA does to fix it. Simply put, we bill using a similar method as billing for surgeons rather than using the itemized superbill method used by Operating Rooms.

 

The insurance companies receive the customary superbill for the case and pay it assuming everything is in order. Later, they receive a second bill from the hospital for the less customary assistant fee. The insurance company believes they have already paid the Operating Room bill for this patient so they deny payment for the assistant fee.

 

To bill like ACESA, most hospital billing departments will have to:

• Learn a new billing system

• Hire more employees to run it

• Experience a lot of risk for no guarantee of a return

 

Hospitals aren’t accustomed to so many denials on their claims and most of them give up and go back to what they know best and what they are successful at.

 

ACESA Assistant Billing can take all that risk out so there is only an up side when you use our billing service and our unique denial reduction system.

 

So now you can benefit from the dramatic revenue increases outlined above. How will that help you manage your budget? At the very minimum, when you ask for increases in your budget, you’ll have instant credibility because of your history as a revenue increaser. You can surely envision many other ways you can leverage your reputation to ease the financial stressors and help you more easily manage your budget.

 

 

Call 1-888-221-5992 for details.

 

 

#3

Attrition costs!

Treat your staff to ACESA assistant training

and you won't be able to get them to leave at gun point.

 

As you well know, attrition can take a heavy financial toll on your budget. The costs of acquiring and orienting good people can be fantastic. By comparison, the cost of keeping good people is minimal. If you fund your staff’s surgical assistant training:

 

• Job satisfaction will go through the roof

• A good pay raise will further spike job satisfaction

• Remember, you can afford the raises with all that extra money coming in

 

You will also find that surgical assisting training is a great incentive to come and work for you. Your recruiting efforts will not only be more fruitful but you’ll attract a higher quality employee than sign-on bonuses alone.

 

 

#4

Surgeons will be so happy with your assisting service,

they'll be very reluctant to take their cases anywhere else.

 

New hospitals move into your area and try to tempt your surgeons away. If they succeed, your facility could become a hospital closure statistic. If there was a way to start right now making your surgeons so satisfied with your facility they would never even think about taking their cases elsewhere, would you be interested in it? It’s easier than you think.

 

Surgeons get attached to the first assistants they are used to, they trust, and they enjoy working with. They don’t like working with anyone else. They’ll reschedule a case if it is impossible for their favorite assistant to be there at the scheduled time.

 

If your staff has been well-trained to assist and over time they develop a surgeon favorite status, your surgeons will be temptation-proofed when other hospitals come knocking – even if they also provide Surgical Assistants.

Have you begun to picture how strong a competitive edge you will develop? But you have to get started right now. It takes time, not only for the surgical assistant training, but for your assistants to develop those strong working bonds with your surgeons.

 

How does a staff trained to first assist impact your budget here? Well you certainly won’t lose any business. But there is a good chance your surgeons will bring even more of their cases to your facility if they are currently doing some of their cases in other facilities.

 

#5

Attract new surgeons like an electromagnet. Increased OR utilization is the hidden benefit that will blow the rest away!

  

Want some really great word-of-mouth advertising? You’ll get a barrel full if you treat your surgeons to a staff well-trained to first assist when they need it. Finding their own assistants is often one of a surgeon’s biggest hassles. Your surgeons will be so happy you got rid of the hassles, they’ll talk up your facility to their colleagues.

 

Offering a strong assisting service is also one extremely effective tool in your surgeon-recruiting tool belt.

 

• You will naturally attract new surgeons

• That translates into more cases leading to full utilization of your OR

• Full OR utilization will have a financial impact on your facility that makes the income from assistant billing pale by comparison.

• You could basically write your own budget ticket.

• Managing your budget would become much less of a hassle.

• Only you can decide what you want this surgical revenue success to do for your career.

 

Just picture your most cherished career goal. How would it make you feel to achieve it? Doesn’t increased surgical revenue and innovative budget management boost your chances of getting there?

 

 

Call 1-888-221-5992 for details.

 

Skills that are useful for a lifetime! "ACESA is a knowledgeable company with YOUR success as their ultimate goal. The suturing and tying techniques that I learned were very beneficial. Knowing the best way to achieve the desired result and how to work under certain circumstances helped to build my confidence for working in almost any situation. The program has been extremely helpful in developing my skills to becoming an exceptional first assistant. The teaching styles accommodate every type of learner and also cover topics that may not have been covered in (tech) school. Overall, the program helps build confidence and provides skills that will be useful for a lifetime. It is great for novices and those that want to refine their skills."      Denise Skarin, ST    Wyoming Medical Center    Casper, WY

 

How will your nurses and techs feel

about the ACESA Surgical Assistant Program?

• Relieved: They won’t have to worry about their liability so much anymore. Your staff loves surgery and they love it even more when they get a chance closer as the first assistant. But they worry they are more vulnerable in the event of litigation. Your people know they have to assist sometimes when a trained assistant isn’t available. But they wish they could do a more knowledgeable, skillful, and professional job.

• Grateful: They will definitely see this as an upward career opportunity – offered by YOU! You get to be the hero. You are the one who takes a personal interest in their future.

• Happy: Your staff will absolutely love their training and the skills they acquire.

 

 

To get training details and to register staff

in the 6-day Surgical SkillLab…

 

Click Here

 

or in the Surgical Assistant Program…

 

Click Here

 

You already fund education as an employee benefit.

Fund this program and the benefits weave throughout

the fabric of your organization.

 

Give us a call now at 1-888-221-5992 and ask for Sarah. She’ll help you analyze your specific need for training, liability reduction, and revenue enhancements.

p.s. Also inquire about any six-day labs in your area you can get your staff in.

p.p.s. If there aren’t any labs in your area, be sure to ask about bringing the lab to your facility for added convenience and good community PR.

 

Refined my skills after finishing RNFA program! "ACESA is great! The labs were of great benefit for all the hands-on experience. The skill labs were extremely helpful in refining my skills after finishing my RNFA program. It provided more of the 'hands-on' aspect to complement what I had already learned to becoming an expert at assisting in surgery."      Connie Heaps, RN, CNOR, RNFA    Steele Memorial Medical Center    Salmon, ID

 

Made me stand out! "The people at ACESA are extremely helpful. The hands-on training really makes a big difference. I never thought I would learn so much in just 6 days. This lab has gone so far beyond my expectations, I feel as though I have been given an enormous gift by Dan. It is so wonderful to know that there are still genuinely good people in this world. He has restored my faith in people again. The knowledge and experience you gain will certainly make you stand out as an experienced SA."      Georgina Saldana, CST    St. Joseph Medical Center    Houston, TX

 

Such an adventure! "This week has been such an adventure. On top of being a great learning experience, it has been fun. Having a relaxed learning environment helps the learning process. These exercises have been very helpful in incorporating all the techniques that we have learned. This course was an excellent resource. I feel more confident and competent to assist in surgery."       Gloria D. Jackson, RN, BSN, CNOR    South Lake Hospital    Clermont, FL

 

Approved and regulated by the Colorado Department of Higher Education,

Private Occupational School Board.

Agents licensed By the Colorado Department of Higer Education,

Division of Private Occupational Schools.

 

To verify, go to www.state.co.us/dpos/

 

 

ACESA, Inc.

Phone: 1-888-221-5992

Fax: 1-303-221-4747

4950 S. Yosemite St., F2 #343

Greenwood Village, Colorado   80111

info@acesatraining.com

 

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** The ACESA Surgical Assistant Program is approved by the American Board of Surgical Assistants, Inc. (ABSA). Upon passing the ABSA exam, graduates can use the title 'SA-C' (Surgical Assistant - Certified.)

 

 

Syneture (the suture division of Covidien), W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., and Ansell Occupational Healthcare are proud to provide surgical materials to ACESA to greatly enhance formal Surgical Assistant training for OR Nurses, Surgical Techs, and other qualified surgical professionals. Syneture also provides suture profiles and a knot tying manual for download from their website.