Anesthesia is an important component to supporting ASC care and migrating high acuity cases to an ASC environment.
Kathy Grichnik, MD, chief of anesthesiology services at SCA Health shared several key ways that anesthesia clinicians can contribute to ASC success in an annual meeting with California Ambulatory Surgery Association stakeholders, according to an email shared with Becker's.
Anesthesiologists can help to reduce patient reliance on opioids, promote site-of-service migration for appropriate cases, optimizing cases for ASCs, improving same-day patient experience and outcomes and reducing same-day surgical cancellations.
With more cases moving to ASC environments, there is a higher need for anesthesiologists. Medicare only values anesthesiology at 33 percent of commercial insurance payments, which, among other factors, has led to a shortage of anesthesia labor, according to the presentation.
Anesthesia groups are requesting increased subsidies to cover labor and overhead costs.