Anesthesia Industry eAlerts
Sent to subscribers every Monday morning, our eAlerts deliver timely updates on regulatory, legislative and practice management developments of interest to anesthesia professionals.
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eAlerts
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A Timely, Transparent Response to Unexpected Harmful Events
November 21, 2016
“We realize mistakes happen, and we can forgive that,” says patient advocate Carol Hemmelgarn, whose nine-year-old daughter died of medical error and a hospital-acquired infection (HAI) in a teaching hospital. “But you harm us again by not being honest and transparent with us . . . we should be healing and learning together how to prevent this from happening to someone else.”
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Lessons from ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2016 on the Perioperative Surgical Home
November 14, 2016
As healthcare transitions from a volume-based to a value-based reimbursement paradigm with the implementation of the Quality Payment Program, bundled payments and other alternative models, how will anesthesiologists, certified registered nurse anesthetists, surgeons and other members of the care team find their place in the new world order? The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and other medical organizations point increasingly to the model already familiar to many of you, the perioperative surgical home (PSH).
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Emergency Manuals for Anesthesia Providers
November 7, 2016
In the heat of a perioperative crisis, the most diligent and highly trained anesthesiologist or certified registered nurse anesthetist can miss a crucial step. Even with years of experience monitoring patients and managing emergencies, anesthesia providers are not above making critical errors in stressful situations. Key details can be overlooked as memory and employable knowledge shrink under pressure.
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Value-Based Healthcare: Insights from ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2016
October 31, 2016
One of the more thought-provoking highlights of ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2016, held last week in Chicago, was the opening session keynote speech by Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School. Dr. Porter shared his vision for value-based healthcare and its implications for anesthesiologists and anesthesia providers. Following are selected, slightly edited excerpts from Dr. Porter’s presentation.
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An Update for Anesthesia Providers on Surprise Billing
October 24, 2016
In a 2015 Consumer Reports survey (see our May 31, 2016 eAlert), nearly a third of Americans had received a medical bill in the previous two years in which their health plan paid less than expected. Among those, nearly one in four had received a surprise bill from an out-of-network physician, such as an anesthesiologist or radiologist, for care delivered at an in-network facility. Only 28 percent of those who received a surprise bill were satisfied with how the problem was resolved, and 57 percent ultimately paid the bill out of their own pockets.
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Anesthesia Business Consultants’ Fall 2016 Issue of The Communiqué—Current News for the Anesthesia Specialty—Available Now
October 18, 2016 – Anesthesia Business Consultants (ABC), a leading provider in billing and practice management for the anesthesia and pain management specialty, is pleased to announce that the Fall 2016 issue of its quarterly newsletter, The Communiqué, is now available.
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An Anesthesiologist-Led Approach to the ‘Silent Epidemic’ of Chronic Postsurgical Pain
October 17, 2016
Consider these statistics:
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How Much Do Anesthesiologists Know About the Costs of Care?
October 10, 2016
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ 2018 target date for having 50 percent of all Medicare fee-for-service payments made through a value-based model is not far away. The transition to value requires hospitals, physicians and post-acute care providers to unite in delivering a high quality and cost-effective patient experience. Indeed, providers must do so or suffer penalties. As an anesthesiologist, how well do you understand the costs of the care that you deliver? According to the speakers at a recent Hospitals and Health Networks webinar, “The New Conversation on Cost,” it’s time for clinicians to learn and become actively involved.
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Does Obesity Stigma Affect Anesthesia Care?
October 3, 2016
Anesthesiologists know the health risks of obesity and the added complexity of providing anesthesia care for significantly overweight patients. Everything from the preoperative assessment to anesthesia induction and maintenance and management of a difficult airway to perioperative pain management requires special planning and consideration.
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When ‘Production’ Undermines Anesthesia Safety: Food for Thought on Physician Employment
September 26, 2016
An anesthesiologist filed a $9 million whistleblower retaliation and wrongful termination lawsuit against his former employer in July alleging he had been fired for voicing concerns about hospital policies and procedures that required anesthesiologists to cut corners on patient safety. We have no opinion on the merits of the lawsuit, nor any information supporting or refuting the plaintiff’s allegations, but physicians and hospitals might consider the issues raised by this scenario.
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MACRA Flexibility for Anesthesia Providers: Set Your Own Pace in 2017
September 19, 2016
The clinician community—anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists included—breathed at least a partial sigh of relief last week. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that clinicians would not suffer financial penalties in 2019 based on their performance in 2017 under the new Quality Payment Program (QPP) that implements the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).
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The Perioperatative Surgical Future
Presented with this opportunity by Dr. Salk, how will each of our anesthesia groups create its own future? How will you as a physician maintain your professional relevance? Will you continue to commit yourself to fading traditional practice patterns and reimbursement models? Or will you take advantage of the paradigm shifts in medicine that are already upon us? Payers are demanding better results, hospital administrators are in need of help, patients are in the middle without access and the specialty of anesthesia needs a tune-up. The perioperative surgical home promises to address it all.
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News Anesthesia Practices Can Use: Costs of Care, Opioid Abuse, Green Practices and More
September 12, 2016
This week’s eAlert offers a compendium of news items and practical advice for anesthesia providers and practice managers, gleaned from a variety of sources. We hope you find these items interesting and useful in your anesthesia practices.
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Pharmacogenomics in Anesthesia Care: Is It Time for Your Practice?
September 6, 2016
The premise is elegant in its simplicity: The more information you have about a surgical patient’s biology, the greater your ability to tailor anesthesia medication appropriately for that patient and lower their risk of an adverse drug reaction (ADR), longer hospital stay or hospital readmission, and the better and more cost-effective the overall quality and safety of your anesthesia care.
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Anesthesiologists: Battle Burnout and Rediscover Meaning
August 29, 2016
The developers of the Maslach Burnout Inventory define physician burnout as “an erosion of the soul caused by a deterioration of one’s values, dignity, spirit and will.” Some suggest its relative absence should be considered a measure of quality. No matter how one defines it, it is not a good thing—for physicians, care teams, practice management professionals, patients or healthcare organizations. As the data show, anesthesiologists unquestionably suffer from it right alongside their peers in other specialties.
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A Refresher for Anesthesiologists on Avoiding Fraud and Abuse
August 22, 2016
An anesthesiologist recently received a several-year prison sentence for prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate medical reason. One of this physician’s patients died from taking hydrocodone, which the physician had prescribed for no legitimate medical purpose.
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HIPAA Helps Keep Hackers at Bay: Hints for Anesthesia Providers
August 15, 2016
We would like to say it isn’t so, but ransomware attacks haven’t tapered off; they’ve soared. So far in 2016, ransomware attacks have risen 300 percent since 2015 (from 1,000 to 4,000 attacks daily), according to a government report.1 The healthcare sector—anesthesia providers included—is especially vulnerable.
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Anesthesia Business Consultants’ Summer 2016 Issue of The Communiqué—Current News for the Anesthesia Specialty—Available Now
August 11, 2016
Anesthesia Business Consultants (ABC), a leading provider in billing and practice management for the anesthesia and pain management specialty, is pleased to announce that the Summer 2016 issue of its quarterly newsletter, The Communiqué, is now available.
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ABC's Affiliate Company, Plexus Technology Group’s Anesthesia Touch Becomes First Mobile AIMS Solution to Achieve Full KLAS Rating
August 9, 2016
The Anesthesia Business Consultants (ABC) affiliate company and trusted Anesthesia Information Management Systems (AIMS) partner, Plexus Technology Group, LLC (Plexus TG), is pleased to announce Anesthesia Touch™ is now a fully-rated AIMS solution as scored by providers and recorded by KLAS research with a score of 891.1
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Anesthesia Practices: Check Your Compliance with the Section 1557 Final Rule
August 8, 2016
An anesthesiology group decides not to provide labor epidural anesthesia to women with limited English proficiency (LEP).1
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What Anesthesia Providers Should Know About the Opioid Crisis
August 1, 2016
The death in April of the musician Prince from an accidental overdose of fentanyl is only one of the more highly publicized instances of a public health problem in the United States that has reached epidemic scale. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 44 people die every day in the U.S. from an overdose of prescription painkillers.
