Financial Support to Anesthesia Groups
Negotiation

Financial Support to Anesthesia Groups

07/22/2024

Here’s the combo that causing the crisis:

  1. Demand for anesthesia services increasing.
  2. Supply of anesthesiologists and CRNAs down.
  3. Payors cutting back on the rates they’re willing to pay.

But it’s also spurred alternative thinking and opportunity.

One clear solution is facility financial support. I say “facility” because it affects hospitals as well as ambulatory surgery centers.

In a very real sense, this is a trip down “experience lane” (it’s like “memory lane”, only better) to my work on behalf of clients in the 1980s as well as in the 2000s, when similar waves of stipend support washed funds from facilities to anesthesia groups, well, at least to those groups that understood the importance of obtaining help in negotiations.

This time around, there’s another accelerant: The federal No Surprises Act and state counterparts have played a significant role in creating the current crisis. What was sold to the public as a shield against so-called “surprise medical bills” was actually a sword to be wielded by payers in slashing reimbursement against the threat of network exclusion.

Facility subsidies are an integral part of exclusive contract negotiation – it’s far more than just money, with multiple types of support arrangements, and with dangerous arrangements that appear to be support but aren’t.

More important, financial support is not an independent issue. It is inextricably linked to other provisions in the agreement and to contractual approaches to uncertainty during the ensuing term. Negotiate carefully and with expert counsel.

Don’t be penny wise and million dollar stupid. Let’s set a time to talk.



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