Hello. Dr. Keith Smith with you – Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Thank you for joining us in this video blog series.

Giving back to the community is a phrase you hear and read often. I always get a chuckle when I hear that some so-called not-for-profit hospital claims to give back to the community in various ways. Particularly since they charge multiples of what we do here at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma. So they take all this money and they give a tiny big of it back and claim to give back to the community.

I’d like to show you a piece of paper that I received last week from the folks at HealthSmart, a third-party administrator in this area. $2.45 million, 127 surgeries. This is the amount that was saved by a self-funded employer here in Oklahoma by surgeries that were performed here at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma rather than at one of these so-called not-for-profit hospitals across town. In all likelihood, the amount was much larger than the $2.4 million.

We have decided that we will give back to the community by just not taking the money in the first place. And we feel like that is a much better and more honest method of being good citizens here in the state of Oklahoma.

I wanted to share this very exciting development in the savings that the folks at HelathSmart are reporting for this employer and let you know that we feel like we are doing our part and we will continue to do so.

Thank you for joining us in this video blog series. We’ll see you next time.

Listen to the audio versions of my video blogs here.