As anesthesia services grow and change, anesthesia provider service agreements need to clarify three important things in their contracts with hospitals, according to MiraMed CEO Tony Mira in a Sept. 7 op-ed: responsibilities, risks and rewards.
Responsibilities
Anesthesia providers used to focus primarily on providing anesthesia services to hospital patients.
Now, they are also responsible for maintaining a strong staff at current pay and stipend rates as well.
"The biggest challenge most practices now face is generating enough revenue to recruit and retain a team of qualified providers to meet administration requirements," Mr. Mira wrote in a Sept. 7 post on the Anesthesia Insider blog. "The reality is that this often costs more than the revenue generated by the cases performed and results in the need for a significant stipend."
Anesthesia service agreements need to have clear anesthesia team coverage expectations and outline a fair compensation plan.
Risks
Anesthesiologists are familiar with clinical risks but don't always have in-depth knowledge of business risks when entering into service contracts. Hospitals are only obligated to pay fair market value, Mr. Mira said, and he advised anesthesiologists to become very familiar with their financial metrics to negotiate financially viable contracts.
Rewards
Exclusivity agreements between hospitals and anesthesia providers are starting to become "a curse rather than a blessing," especially if the agreements did not take market volatility into account, Mr. Mira wrote.
Unfavorable agreements for anesthesiologists are often stagnant and don't have the ability to anticipate changes in the market or the economy. Instead, Mr. Mira advised anesthesiologists to develop flexible long-term deals with profitability in mind.