Parceling Out Anesthesia's Profits
Re: "ASA Seeks Federal Ruling on Billing Arrangement" (May, page 10). So the American Society of Anesthesiologists objects to what has been labeled "the company model." ASA feels that it's a bad and scary thing when a non-anesthesia group forms an anesthesia company, hires anesthesia providers, has them assign their billing rights to the company, then turns around and pays the providers something less than the revenues they generate. Yet this perfectly describes the scenario propagated by ASA in its Anesthesia Care Team model, wherein a group of CRNAs assign their billing rights to the anesthesiologist-owned group, provide the services (even assuming all TEFRA rules are followed, hah!) and are paid considerably less than the revenues they generate. ASA might want to be a bit more careful in using terms like anti-competitive … and instead just compete.

Jay Horowitz, CRNA
Quality Anesthesia Care Corp.
Sarasota, Fla.
unconscious@verizon.net