SummaryThe world of anesthesia has been in a dramatic state of transition and flux. As so many practices lose their contracts or get bought out, many providers are starting to wonder if the private anesthesia practice is becoming obsolete. Ironically these times of challenge may actually present some interesting opportunities. It is way too soon t...
Summary The specialty of anesthesiology is focused on a dual challenge to address patient pain but reduce the use of opioids. Nerve blocks are being seen as playing an important in addressing these objectives. New codes for TAP blocks have been introduced. Adoption of them is slower than expected but the potential may be significant.In 2015 CPT ad...
Summary The world of anesthesia is in a constant state of evolution. Nowhere is this more evident than in the structure of anesthesia entities. Private group practice is still the norm but this is changing as large companies aggregate the market. The question is where will all the aggregation take the specialty? This is the question of the day.The...
Summary This article is intended to inform readers of the increased utilization of ultrasound services within the specialty of anesthesia and to forecast future payer policy concerning its reimbursement.Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) revised its regulations to allow for the billing of ultrasound guidance (USG) with arterial lines...
Summary In an era of increasingly challenging negotiations between anesthesia practices and hospital administrators over subsidy requirements, it is becoming more difficult to justify additional financial support. Two issues that keep coming to the fore are operating room utilization and provider productivity. This study of shoulder cases puts the...
Summary Proposed Legislation May Bring an Unwanted Surprise to Anesthesia Groups Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! That famous line routinely delivered by a beloved actor from a 60s sitcom is resounding once again—this time in the halls of government. A few months ago, we informed you of a serious effort on Capitol Hill to craft legislation that would...
Summary The ASA Guide has been slightly revised with regard to the two codes listed below. We wanted to make sure everyone was aware. The 2019 ASA Relative Value Guide(RVG) includes minor revisions for two codes that can be billed as adjunct services for an anesthetic. One, 99116, describes anesthesia complicated by the utilization of total body ...
JACKSON, Mich., May 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MiraMed Global Services, Inc. (MiraMed), a leader in healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) services and business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions, announces it has completed its merger with Medac, Inc., a leading provider of anesthesia revenue cycle management. The combination creates the leading ...
Summary Endoscopy has been the subject of much debate and review over the past few years. While many of the policy changes in recent years have been positive for anesthesia and encouraged the expansion of this line of business we are bracing for payor pushback that may cause some rethinking of group endoscopy strategies. Few topics have captur...
SummaryCyberattacks against medical devices, including anesthesia machines and other devices used in anesthesia, are a rapidly growing threat that could compromise privacy, interfere with care and endanger lives. We encourage anesthesia providers to work with their chief information officers and health IT security teams to ensure the appropriate st...
Summary: As shown by the two new proposed interoperability rules released by the Department of Health and Human Services in February, the federal government has serious plans to stop the practice of information blocking by imposing stiff civil monetary penalties on developers and requiring disincentives for providers. Anesthesia providers sh...
Summary: The use of medical scribes to handle computer-related tasks is rapidly growing in medicine. Should pain management and anesthesia practitioners use scribes? We explore the arguments for and against this growing trend. Though a recent Mayo Clinic survey of 5,400 physicians shows burnout has dropped slightly and satisfaction with...
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services uses a risk adjustment model based on a set of hierarchical condition categories for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries to make appropriate and accurate payments for enrollees with differences in expected costs. We encourage anesthesia practitioners to be aware of these categories, whi...
The past month has seen a burst of developments on the healthcare legislative and judicial fronts with potential to impact anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists as well as all clinicians and institutions.The House Democrats last week introduced comprehensive legislation to strengthen the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with an emphasis on protecting ...
As we noted in last week's eAlert on developing an anesthesia quality program, the need for anesthesia practices to demonstrate quality to their facilities has become virtually as important as getting paid for services.We touched on some of the key points from the talk by Spiro G. Spanakis, DO, at PRACTICE MANAGEMENT™ 2019 regarding the reasons why...
It has never been more important for anesthesia practices to demonstrate the quality of their care. We review some of the key ingredients of an effective anesthesia quality program from a presentation at PRACTICE MANAGEMENT™ 2019 and will explore quality measure selection and definition in a future eAlert.The need for anesthesia departments to sho...
A recent analysis of the financial information of 104 leading health systems (more than 2,200 hospitals) found that size and profitability do not necessarily go hand in hand. The report, by Navigant, throws into question the common wisdom that scale is required to deliver the effectiveness, cost efficiency, care coordination, physician recruitment ...