2011 Anesthesia Business Update

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Obamacare. Accountable Care Organizations. ASC owners seeking to capture anesthesia billings. The pace of the battle over control of your future is quickening.

Some ignore it, as if it will go away. Many talk about it, but take no action. Only a few take the time to strategize, or even merely to plan, for their group’s future, and therein lies your opportunity.

The great majority of anesthesia groups merely “are;” they consider themselves at the mercy of a hospital, of the government, and of commercial payors. Few groups plan even six months to a year into their future, planning being an incremental process, building on the present situation.

But the top echelon of groups take the time and make the effort to strategize for their long term success, strategy being the creation an envisioned, long term future which then serves as a magnet for transformational growth and success.

This year’s Anesthesia Business Update centers on the battle for control over your future. It explores six major themes related to developing and refining your group’s strategy in 2011. On the pages that follow:

• We’ll take a look at the latest seismic attempt to effect a change in overall control, the Accountable Care Organization, and discuss how the process can be hijacked.

• On the group level, we’ll discuss some of the secrets to hospital contract negotiation success.

• Also on the group level, we’ll take a look at how a “simple” provision in an exclusive contract, the indemnification clause, can bankrupt your group by making you liable for damages you had no hand in causing.

• We’ll discuss how creating an experience monopoly is an essential part of your group’s long term success.

• And, last but by no means least, we’ll discuss the planned replacement, yes, replacement, of physicians by paraprofessionals – and what you can do about it.

Long ago, physicians ceded control of the healthcare market only to have a healthcare “system” rise, a system controlled by bean counters and policy wonks.

Don’t simply become a bit character in their play, strategize for your own future.