Across the United States and the District of Columbia, the average anesthesia managed care contract rate during the first several months of 2012 was $67.94.That figure comes from the latest ASA survey of commercial fees paid for anesthesia services, published in the November issue of the ASA NEWSLETTER.  ASA fields the survey electronically every year, soliciting responses through email, committee list servs, newsletters and the website.  Whether the responses are representative of the specialty is an open question, but the overall consistency of the survey results from year to year, since it was initiated in the mid-1990s, supplies a certain measure of credibility.  The survey leverages the relatively small number of respondents by asking for the conversion factors (“CFs” or “unit rates”) for five of each group’s largest managed care contract rates.The first thing to note is that $67.94 is a weighted average of averages across up to five contracts for each of...