Jackson, MI, August 21, 2007 - Anesthesia Business Consultants, LLC (ABC) is proud to announce that it has engaged Karin Bierstein, JD, MPH as Vice President for Strategic Planning and Practice Affairs.

Ms. Bierstein is well known in the anesthesiology community, having served as the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ (ASA) in-house expert on practice management since 1994. As ASA’s Associate Director of Professional Affairs, the position that she held until August 19, Ms. Bierstein advised numerous practices on private payer contracts and Medicare fees and regulations; on hospital and ambulatory surgical center relationships and on quality and pay-for-performance programs. She worked with ASA committees, government agencies and multi-specialty coalitions on a variety of policy initiatives.

Anesthesiologists who have not dealt with Ms. Bierstein directly are nevertheless familiar with her work through her monthly Practice Management columns in the ASA Newsletter. Anesthesiologists who have heard their colleagues introduce Ms. Bierstein as a speaker know that she earned her law degree at Cornell and her M.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health. She practiced law with large firms in New York and Los Angeles before coming to Washington, where her first job was with the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Tony Mira, President and CEO of ABC, says “We are looking forward to taking our clients to the next level with Karin’s help. Her experience with the range of anesthesiology issues and best practices and her knowledge of Washington will serve us in many ways. Karin has vision and drive and we invite the anesthesia community to keep in touch with us as, together with Karin, we launch new ventures in the next few years.”

Karin Bierstein would like to assure her friends in anesthesiology that in moving from ASA to the private sector, she feels more committed to the specialty than ever. “I am grateful to ASA for the education and friendships it has given me,” Ms. Bierstein says, “and I am very enthusiastic about developing new programs and helping anesthesiology practices with the focus and resources of my new team at ABC.”

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If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview, please contact Cortney Shepherd at 517-787-6440 ext 4113 or at Cortney.shepherd@anesthesiallc.com