Reimbursements paid to anesthesiologists in hospital outpatient departments and ASCs decreased after state surprise billing legislation was passed, according to an analysis published in JAMA Network Open.
The analysis looked at 2.5 million claims in California, Florida and New York filed by privately insured patients who received anesthesia services in HOPDs and ASCs between 2014 and 2017.
The claims filed in the three states, all of which passed surprise billing legislation between 2014 and 2017, were compared to claims filed in 45 states without surprise billing legislation.
The analysis, published in August, found that reimbursements for both out-of-network anesthesiologists at in-network facilities and in-network anesthesiologists decreased after the state introduced surprise billing legislation.
The analysis attributes the reimbursement decline to changing payer-practitioner negotiation dynamics.