Summary: The anesthesia specialty is critical to America's overall healthcare system. However, according to a newly released study, the nation is facing a growing dearth of anesthesia providers. The hot topic of the day is the shortage in anesthesia manpower. Not since the 1990s with the publication of the Abt Corporation report has there been suc...

Last month, we published an alert outlining the provisions of the 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Proposed Rule (PR) that were most pertinent to the practice of anesthesia. As promised in that alert, this article will act to provide further details arising from the PR that may impact our readers' practices—including those in the chronic ...

Summary:  The goal of every anesthesia practice is financial and strategic independence. This allows practices to pursue clinical and business opportunities that will support their ongoing financial viability. The problem is that, for some practices, the impact of deteriorating payer mix, declining volume, and unreasonable coverage and call r...

Summary: While reasonable payment rates among commercial plans for anesthesia services were forthcoming in the past, it is clearly becoming more difficult to obtain adequate rates from many payers. This, coupled with fairly flat Medicare and Medicaid rates and a growing Medicare and Medicaid population, translates to significant pressure on gr...

Summary:  It's that time of year again. The government has released its massive proposed 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, and it contains more disappointing news relative to anesthesia and ancillary reimbursement.Some suggestions can be rather upsetting, and some recommendations can be downright discouraging. Such is the case for the...

SummaryIt's not getting any easier for anesthesiologists and anesthetists who provide services in pain clinics. Medicare recently released a new policy that will make it more difficult to get paid in facet intervention cases.From the crease of the valley below, you can see the degree of the slope just ahead. The walk thus far has been at either a l...

Summary:  For practices that submit a significant number of out-of-network claims, the coming federal law that addresses surprise medical bills will likely mean less revenue for such claims. But how much less? Today's article addresses what we currently know and what remains to be seen.A 2018 study from the Kaiser Foundation suggested that 18...

Summary:Anesthesia providers who accessed money from the Provider Relief Fund will have a bit more time to use these funds and to report back to the federal government, as HHS has recently announced that new timelines are now in place.Sometimes, we receive good news. In a year dominated by distressing stories of mass illness and protracted lockdown...

Summary:Medicare Guidelines limiting the place of service for a number of common procedures changed in 2020. Of these, the total hip has been the most significant. The migration of these cases from inpatient to outpatient venues proves to be a useful and relevant case study.As the premier provider of outsourced billing and management information to...

The anticipation is palpable. It's the early 1970s and you've just paid a whopping $7 to hear the Who, live and in concert. The hall is full. The audience is cranked and ready to rock; but before Roger Daltrey can come on stage to sing Pinball Wizard and assure you that We Won't Be Fooled Again, you must first endure the undercard. That is, you hav...

Summary:  Common wisdom is one thing, but looking at the raw data gives us a more accurate perspective on the reality of the situation. Today's alert dives into the numbers and reveals trends regarding age, gender and case type.The prevailing view among most anesthesia providers is that their patient populations are slowly aging. According to...

Summary: Every now and then, we need a little help from our friends. It's no surprise, then, that we occasionally come across two anesthesia providers in the same operating room at the same time. What does this mean from a compliance and compensation standpoint? Today's article dishes on the details.In his heyday, no one was more proficient a...

SummaryWhat are the typical services performed by non-physician practitioners, such as physician assistants, within a chronic pain practice, and is there a way to optimize their value to the group? Those are the questions today's article will explore.In last week's e-alert, we discussed the various policy issues associated with the use of nurse pra...

A veteran of the armed forces recently remarked that, in order to be an effective fighting force, a military unit needs some to operate weapons and others to peel potatoes. Both groups are equally critical, though one may seem more glamourous in the eyes of others. "An army marches on its stomach," is a well-known maxim that makes the same point. C...

When the Medicare program was established, a decision was made to implement a payment methodology that had been developed by Blue Shield. For each case submitted, an allowable would be determined based on the base value and the time units billed for the case. Actual payment to the provider would be reduced by two factors: an annual deductible and a...

Everyone likes getting a deal. Our eyes are drawn to ads touting the "lowest prices in town" or "half off on everything in stock" or "get two for the price of one." We humans are hardwired to go after a bargain. It not only saves precious financial resources, but it gives us an internal sense of our own shrewdness. Most businesses are all too happy...

SummaryDiscussion continues on how to address the labor needs in the specialty of anesthesia, which is projected to worsen as the US population (and anesthesia physician population) ages. Community-based residency programs—common in internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics and OB-GYN—may help the specialty of anesthesiology address these need...

Summary:  What happens when you make a mistake in your medical record documentation? Do you just write over it or, in the EMR context, simply hit delete and reenter? What about the timing of the revision? All these and other topics related to revising the anesthesia record are discussed in today's article.In November of 1948, editors of the C...

Summary:  As a significant number of anesthesia groups have a chronic pain component, we felt a review of the pandemic's impact on interventional pain management might prove beneficial. An analysis of several groups providing pain management services yielded some surprising results.As the largest provider of outsourced billing and practice ma...

Summary:  Among the many documentation components required on the anesthesia record is the provider's signature. However, many don't realize that there are several attendant rules surrounding this basic task that make this component a bit more complicated than one might initially think.The delivery man comes to the door with an expensive packa...