Anesthesia Business Consultants (ABC), is pleased to announce its latest partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University, (VCU) Department of Anesthesiology to provide integrated practice management billing services.ABC entered into discussions with VCU to explore options to integrate VCU’s billing information into ABC’s proprietary practice management software, F1RSTAnesthesia.  Effective September 1, 2015, ABC will begin receiving charge information from VCU.  This data will be processed via F1RSTAnesthesia with its very sophisticated concurrency and reporting modules and returned to VCU’s GE-IDX system through a secure HL7 interface.  The data will then be finalized via VCU’s GE-IDX system, allowing VCU to bill claims out of their historical system, maintaining the look and feel of an internal process.ABC is very excited to be working with VCU on this exciting, new project.  We see the integration of F1RSTAnesthesia into VCU's billing process as an excellent way to allow them to provide the level of service they are...

What is your succession plan? Oh, you don’t have one! Why not? Maybe you don’t think you need one. Or maybe you figure you will manage a change in leadership the way you manage anesthesia in the Operating Room; when the need arises you will figure it out. If this describes your practice you are not alone. If so, it may be time to think about what this says about your practice. The Significance of a Strong Leader The reality of most private practice anesthesia groups is that the strength of the contract with the hospital or facility depends heavily on the relationship between a key member of the practice and the administration. This can be a good thing when the leader speaks for the interests of the membership but what happens when he or she steps down? It is an unknown, but this is an inevitable development for every practice....

Are the standard measures of health care quality—structure, process and even outcomes—all that good? A generation ago, many observers doubted that the tools of quality measurement could be applied at all in healthcare.  Now we have moved beyond the belief that “we know quality when we see it.”  We have acknowledged the limitations of structure (e.g., clinician training) and process (e.g., maintenance of normothermia in anesthetized patients) measures.  We have placed the emphasis on outcomes and have created considerable numbers of performance measures to assess clinical outcomes.  Yet, when we examine and compare performance scores across providers, the information is not always convincing.  Varying definitions of outcomes, and the underdeveloped state of risk adjustment methodologies are just some of the factors that make quality data unreliable in many cases.  Quality measurement in healthcare has come a considerable distance, but it still has a long way to go. That may be the reason for...

By: Richard P. Dutton, MD, MBA Chief Quality Officer, American Society of Anesthesiologists Executive Director, Anesthesia Quality Institute, Schaumburg, IL   Matthew T. Popovich, Ph.D. Director of Quality and Regulatory Affairs, American Society of Anesthesiologists, Washington, D.C.   The fact is, folks, that the Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR)—and pay for performance reporting in general— is ridiculously complex. And the rules are changing every year. This article will lay out some of the basics, using simple lists and bullets, in the hope of making the options more intuitive. We wish to acknowledge also the editorial assistance of Karin Bierstein, herself an expert, who will correct any inadvertent misstatements we might make. Between the three of us we should be able to lift the fog a little bit.   Let’s begin with some Q&A:   Do I have to participate in performance reporting?   Leaving aside the local advantages of an effective...

Dateline Phoenix Phoenix. No, not the city in Arizona, but the mythical bird. The one that springs to life from the ashes of its predecessor. Anesthesia groups, like birds, have a life cycle. Birth to death. Formation to failure. The group’s founders hatch the concept and bring it into existence. The group obtains business traction in its infancy and grows until it reaches maturity. But, sooner or later and as inevitable as the sunset, the group begins to decline: the loss of contractual relationships. The unfastening of the bonds that bind the group together. Its eventual dissolution isn’t far off. The flames of death engulf the group. But unlike natural birds, many dying anesthesia groups have within them the kernel of rebirth. Enter the phoenix. Death and Praxis In today’s anesthesia market, we’re seeing two slightly different patterns of anesthesia group decline and death: the failed site of a national or...