Pain-focused De novo ASC Opens Using HST
Align Pain started their new ASC and chose HST for billing, charting, payment processing, scheduling, and more.
De novo, fully digital ASC from day one:
- 100% electronic charting adoption
- Clinical and billing team delighted with implementation
- Patient payments integrated with automated reconciliation
# of Centers: 1
Featured Solutions: Surgery Center Management, Electronic Charting
Solutions in Use: Patient Payments, Scheduling & Care Communication, Patient Engagement, Patient Estimates
Specialties: Interventional Pain Management
State(s): OK
Customer type: ASC
Introduction
Align Pain is a physician-owned interventional pain management practice and newly launched ASC (as of Dec. 2025) led by Dr. Pollard, who owns both the medical clinic and the ASC. After starting her pain practice in 2020, Dr. Pollard and her team decided to expand into a de novo ASC to move a large portion of their Medicare pain procedures into a more efficient outpatient setting.
Their key leaders, Kaci Hempfling and Jason Whitford, took a very thorough approach to opening their new ASC, and that included a rigorous software evaluation process.
From day one, they chose to be fully electronic, avoiding paper charts entirely and building their workflows around HST’s ASC-specific platform. As a new ASC, Align Pain joins a broader community of surgery centers that rely on HST to open with modern, digital-first operations rather than retrofitting legacy processes later.
Challenge
Because Align Pain was building an ASC from the ground up, the team did not have legacy systems to replace, but they also didn’t have established ASC workflows to fall back on. They wanted technology that would show them ideal ASC workflows, guide staff step-by-step through check-in, intake, procedures, and sign-off, and help a new team avoid missed documentation and unsigned notes.
Jason and Kaci had heard stories from other centers about physician notes sitting unsigned for weeks and the operational burden of paper charts, and they were determined not to repeat those mistakes.
Financially and operationally, the ASC also needed an integrated approach. Before opening the surgery center, the clinic relied on a basic payment system and had no dedicated ASC payment processing, patient estimate capabilities, or digital coordination tools. At the same time, regulatory expectations around Good Faith Estimates and payer transparency were increasing. Align Pain needed a platform that could not only manage core clinical documentation and practice management but also support charting, patient estimates, payments, and coordination as case volume and payer mix grew.
The Solution
Align Pain first encountered HST at the annual ASCA conference. They enjoyed HST’s State of the ASC Industry report that clearly mapped out ASC best practices, workflows, and data benchmarks.
The team evaluated both HST and SIS Complete. They initially assumed they might be the “odd man out” and choose SIS, but once they saw HST’s demo, they “got it” and realized the platform aligned better with ASC workflows, their budget, and their support expectations.
The group had high praise about HST’s implementation process across HST’s surgery center management, electronic charting, patient estimates, and patient payments solutions. As of this writing, they’re in the process of also implementing the advanced scheduling and patient engagement modules. They regularly rely on HST University and the Community Portal to reinforce training between cases.
Early on, Kaci became the ASC’s “super user,” working with HST’s implementation team to configure charting blocks tailored to their setup. She liked the ability to configured every part of the chart, allowing Align Pain to remove irrelevant sections, add pain-specific elements, and make the electronic chart look and flow like “their” chart.
From a workflow perspective, they especially love two features. First, multiple users can be in the same chart simultaneously, entering data from different parts of the workflow while acknowledging each other’s changes. As Kaci, it’s like “everyone holding the same piece of paper” without waiting in line.
Second, HST’s step-by-step tasking and visible completion percentage for activities like check-in and intake give staff a clear progress indicator and prevent skipped steps. For a new ASC team that gravitates toward checklists, these guideposts make onboarding and compliance significantly easier.
Implementation and support were equally important to them. Weekly training sessions, recorded content, and a dedicated go-live resource meant that on their first live day, HST staff were available in real time to troubleshoot issues, such as resolving monitor/vital sign interface problems in minutes instead of losing an entire clinic day.
Jason and Kaci described the implementation specialists as “basically family,” accessible via multiple channels. That level of hand-holding made a complex ASC launch feel manageable.
Having the simultaneous users being able to input information into eChart in is a huge benefit.
– Jason Whitford
The Results
Clinically, Dr. Pollard’s reaction to HST eChart has been overwhelmingly positive. She can enter the physician workflow, complete what she needs quickly, and be done with minimal clicks required. This early buy-in from the physician-owner sets a strong foundation for long-term adoption as volumes grow.
Operationally, the ability for multiple users to work in the same chart at once has already streamlined day-to-day workflows. Front desk, nursing, and providers no longer have to wait for each other to “finish the chart,” and the HST’s progress indicators and embedded reminders help ensure that documentation is complete and ready to bill. The team particularly values the step-by-step guidance through check-in, intake, procedure documentation, and sign-off, along with prompts that signal when a note is ready to bill so they’re not chasing charts days later.
The implementation process, for us, was I think 80% of why we love it so much now. Let alone the features it provides are also great.
– Kaci Hempfling
The Future
As Align Pain grows, they anticipate bringing in more payers and negotiating strong initial rates that will support long-term financial health.
On the financial modules side, their billing team is excited to ramp up usage of the patient estimates and patient payments solutions as more commercial contracts go live. This will enable them to do automated insurance verification, accurate estimates, and automatically reconcile patient payments.
They also intend to track key metrics such as same-day chart completion rates, time from case completion to billing readiness, monthly case growth, and patient payment trends. Capturing these quantitative results will make it easier to demonstrate the ASC’s performance to payers and partners and to quantify the full impact of HST on efficiency, revenue cycle, and staff workload.