What Do Hospitals Want From Anesthesia Groups?

In today’s healthcare environment, anesthesia groups have many issues to deal with, including ACO’s, pressure on reimbursement, quality tracking, the surgical home, and pressure on hospital subsidies.  Despite these concerns, it is important to remember that for groups which enjoy exclusive arrangements with one or more facilities, their key asset is their hospital contract.  Without a contract for services, the patients at that facility would be serviced by another entity, and all other issues would become irrelevant.  Since hospital contracts are awarded and retained at the pleasure of facility administration, a fundamental consideration for groups should be to understand the expectations of facility leaders from their anesthesia providers.

This article will address that issue from the perspective of the author, an anesthesiologist who consults for both hospitals and providers, giving a unique perspective on these expectations.  As the world of healthcare continues to shift from pay for volume to pay for value, and as patient satisfaction and transparency become our new reality, the expectations of facility leaders shifts as well.  We will approach hospital expectations of anesthesia groups at a high level and as a “Top 10 List” in the David Letterman format – counting down to the most important expectation.