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Ambulatory Management Solutions Rebrands to Ambulatory Anesthesia Care (AAC)

One of the lynchpins of safe, effective surgery is exceptional anesthesia. Obsessive dedication to quality and dogged pursuit of innovation by groups like Mobile Anesthesiologists in Chicago, Noble Anesthesia Partners in Texas, and M2 Anesthesia, a pediatric dental anesthesia group in the PNW, are all part of a larger ecosystem of success. That success has...

Anesthesiologists Are Essential to Patient Safety

With the growth of ambulatory surgery, there are increased efforts to meet demand. One approach has been changing requirements on physician-anesthesiologists in the OR, including two bills up for consideration in Illinois, both removing the requirements for direct anesthesiologist supervision of CRNAs or other providers when delivering anesthesia (1 and 2). While CRNAs are an...

Anesthesia and Value-Based Care: From surviving to thriving.

Portions of this piece on anesthesia and value-based care were originally published by Scope partner practice Mobile Anesthesiologists in Becker’s ASC review. It has been updated to reflect policy changes by CMS and changing landscape of non-hospital surgical care. While the backbone of value-based care is primary care and preventative medicine, inevitably surgical intervention is...

Scope Practice Spotlight: Mobile Anesthesiologists

The Competitive Advantage: The Mobile Way From the perspective of Chicago’s Mobile Anesthesiologists, the accelerating tailwinds of payers, patients, value-based care, and COVID-19 have had a positive impact on the physician office space over the past two years. In this post-COVID world, we will continue to see patients look for alternatives to hospitals and ASCs...

Healthcare Data Part 1: More than a Buzzword

Healthcare data in “ground level” hands can be much more of a game changer than people often realize. Gut feelings have kept individual humans alive since we were enterprising primates first stepping away from the safety of trees. Gut feelings, however, are terrible when it comes to the bigger picture. They’re too susceptible to the...

The Perverse Incentive of Hospital-Centric Care

The model of hospital-centric care is giving way to specialists and ambulatory settings. The US currently has 9200 ambulatory surgery centers, surgical offices, and surgical clinics, with more breaking ground every single week. These facilities, often hospital affiliated, aren’t just ready, they’re custom built to provide surgical care to patients that do not require the full freight of a hospital, doing so with the same record on outcomes in less time at a lower cost. They also free up hospital resources by allowing for more focus on sicker patients.

Outsourcing Anesthesia Is a Competitive Advantage

Veterans of the business, practice, and policy of healthcare will all tell you the same thing. Contrary to the best efforts of the AHA, ambulatory surgery is finally being allowed to meet the needs of a population that is both growing and aging in ways that hospitals, increasingly falling into the category of acute care,...

Ethical Growth in Healthcare’s Consolidation Era

Healthcare in the United States has been in an ongoing era of consolidation since the late 1970s with the early growth of conglomerated health systems and accelerating in the mid-1990s with the launch of the “payvider” model, where large scale payers began acquiring health systems, creating a closed loop. The trend continued in the early...

The Growth of Outpatient Surgery comes from Setting Higher Standards

High standards for ambulatory surgery, whether in ASCs or the office, remain the linchpin to successfully resolving a constellation of systemic issues in healthcare. Rising costs, stagnant quality, declining access, and discouraged providers; moving the ball on all of the above remains a dedication to pushing the bounds of excellence in ambulatory settings. Within ASC...