Anesthesia challenges are piling up for ASC leaders as the provider shortage becomes more dire and reimbursements rise.
Here's what five ASC leaders have said about anesthesia coverage and staffing recently:
Tina Driggers. Administrator of Credentialing at Day Surgery Center (Winter Haven, Fla.): Our biggest investment this year will be in staff, specifically anesthesiologists. As a freestanding, physician-owned ASC, our staff is important to our success. Utilizing cross training and time management are great ways to keep that work-life balance for all employees, anesthesiologists and surgeons. This has helped us maintain a great team to ensure the best care for our patients.
Adeel Faruki, MD. Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston): Declining physician reimbursements with staff shortages are forcing leaders to become creative with their staffing models and reconsider what anesthesia practices will look like in the future. The next few years will see significant changes in the way we practice anesthesia. I am looking forward to seeing how creative ASCs, hospitals and academic institutions become in order to deal with these reimbursement changes in combination with increasing costs of employment.
Kelly Fowler. Administrator of Surgical Institute of Alabama (Vestavia Hills): The biggest threat to ASCs right now is stable, cost-effective anesthesia coverage. Subsidy and stipend requests are acutely affecting all our bottom lines
Adamina Podraza, MD. Medical Director at Deerpath Ambulatory Surgical Center (Morris, Ill.): The best way to grow your ASC business is to secure top-quality anesthesia coverage. An experienced anesthesiologist is invaluable for ensuring efficiency of OR turnover and excellent patient care. For optimal patient satisfaction, it's crucial that patients can comfortably ambulate from the surgery center with minimal pain or discomfort following their anesthetic and operation.
JoAnn Vecchio. Administrator and Vice President of Ambulatory Surgery Services at Ambulatory Surgery Center of Western New York, Catholic Health System (Amherst): The biggest investment we will make this year is in staffing and anesthesia coverage. There is a critical shortage in the ASC arena, and being able to keep up with the pay rates at the acute sites and other independent ASCs has been a consistent challenge. An ASC employee is responsible for being proficient in multiple specialties, and the types of cases ASCs perform makes the pace much faster than an acute site. Another challenge is balancing the financial "bucket" to ensure that the revenue percentage per case allocated to payroll does not exceed the budgeted amount. Reimbursement rates have not caught up to the inflation rate that employees are facing in their lives, so it will be one of the biggest investments we make this year. In terms of anesthesia, income guarantees are now becoming prevalent if not standard, making it another one of our biggest investments. For specialty staffing challenges, it will require its own line on the balance sheet to be able to meet the market rates for coverage.