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 ...

Please take a moment to participate in the second annual ASA nationwide survey on anesthesia drug shortages. This brief survey will help ASA continue to work with legislative and regulatory policymakers to develop policies that help to avert drug shortages, provide advanced notification and mitigate the effects of drug shortages. Data from last year's survey was instrumental to ASA in demonstrating the urgency of addressing drug shortages.      For this survey to be successful, ASA will again need a high participation rate of members.  Please complete this survey and encourage other ASA members to do so as well. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/asadrugshortagesurvey I. Revised Anesthesia Conversion Factors CMS has just updated the Medicare conversion factors (CFs) for anesthesia services.  The new national, unadjusted CF is $21.52, up from $21.41 for the first two months of 2012.  Download the list of locality-adjusted CFs here. As noted on the CMS website, “Medicare payment rates under...