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A small item that doesn't make your pain any easier, but that you may wish to consider: I'm an anesthesiologist. I practice at one hospital, and one hospital o

A small item that doesn't make your pain any easier, but that you may wish to consider: I'm an anesthesiologist. I practice at one hospital, and one hospital only. I am a partner in my group, which the partners collectively own. I don't work for the hospital. I don't work for a private equity firm. Our billing is done by a practice management company, who takes their cut, but we're all out of the same pool that paid for your surgery. In fact, the first entity to submit a bill to insurance under a claim has to collect the deductible (not copay, it's not an office visit), so we often delay our claims by a month or so and let someone else have that joy. So, I'd encourage you to find healthcare from physician-owned groups. They are not as easy to find as they were twenty years ago, let alone forty, but we don't have a call center, and if you call us you will get a human being who lives and works in the US on the phone. How do I know? We have exactly two non-revenue-generating employees. It will be one of them.

olliej 3y ago
The problem isn't that the hospital subcontracted for anesthesia. The problem is that hospital didn't simply bill me, but instead passed billing to the subcontractor, who billed me separately. Why should I, as a patient, be exposed to the internal organization of the hospital? If, as the hospital claims, I have a personal relationship with the anesthesiology company why can I not choose who to use? I really want to emphasize this fact: it is not the subcontracting that is the problem, it is the separation of billing.
- devilbunny 3y ago
  The hospital doesn't employ me. They pay my group to cover call for them, but we are legally an entirely separate entity from the hospital. And, as long as whoever you want to do your anesthesia has privileges at that hospital, you can use them. We're not the only ones who can work there; we're just the ones who have to take any case any surgeon who has privileges wants to do. (This creates its own set of headaches; there was an ENT surgeon who did all of his quick, easy, and profitable ear tubes and tonsils with a different anesthesia group in town, but if the tonsil bled at night, he would call us to do the much-worse-paying and unscheduled surgery to stop the bleeding.)

olliej 3y ago

The problem isn't that the hospital subcontracted for anesthesia. The problem is that hospital didn't simply bill me, but instead passed billing to the subcontractor, who billed me separately. Why should I, as a patient, be exposed to the internal organization of the hospital? If, as the hospital claims, I have a personal relationship with the anesthesiology company why can I not choose who to use? I really want to emphasize this fact: it is not the subcontracting that is the problem, it is the separation of billing.

devilbunny 3y ago
The hospital doesn't employ me. They pay my group to cover call for them, but we are legally an entirely separate entity from the hospital. And, as long as whoever you want to do your anesthesia has privileges at that hospital, you can use them. We're not the only ones who can work there; we're just the ones who have to take any case any surgeon who has privileges wants to do. (This creates its own set of headaches; there was an ENT surgeon who did all of his quick, easy, and profitable ear tubes and tonsils with a different anesthesia group in town, but if the tonsil bled at night, he would call us to do the much-worse-paying and unscheduled surgery to stop the bleeding.)