The impact of longer-than-average anesthesia times on the billing of academic anesthesiology departments.

UNLABELLED: Academic anesthesiology departments provide clinical services for surgical procedures that have longer-than-average surgical times and correspondingly increased anesthesia times. We examined the financial impact of these longer times in three ways: 1) the estimated loss in revenue if billing were done on a flat-fee system by using industry-averaged anesthesia times; 2) the estimation of incremental operating room (OR) sites necessitated by longer anesthesia times; and 3) the estimated potential gain in billed units if the hours of productivity of current anesthesia time were applied to surgical cases of average duration. Health Care Financing Administration average times per anesthesia procedure code were used as industry averages. Billing data were collected from four academic anesthesiology departments for 1 yr. Each claim billed with ASA units was included except for obstetric anesthesia care. All clinical sites that do not bill with ASA units were excluded. Base units were determined for each anesthesia procedure code. The mean commercial conversion factor (US$45 per ASA unit) for reimbursement was used to estimate the impact in dollar amounts. In all four groups, anesthesia times exceeded the Health Care Financing Administration average. The loss per group in billed ASA units if a flat-fee billing system were used ranged from 18,194 to 31,079 units per group, representing a 5% to 15% decrease (estimated billing decrease of US$818,719 to US$1,398,536 per group). The number of excess OR sites necessitated by longer surgical and anesthesia times ranged from 1.95 to 4.57 OR sites per group. The potential gain in billed units if the hours of productivity of current anesthesia time were applied to surgical cases of average duration was estimated to be from 13,273 to 21,368 ASA units. Longer-than-average anesthesia and surgical times result in extra hours or additional OR sites to be staffed and loss of potential reimbursement for the four academic anesthesiology departments. A flat-fee system would adversely affect academic anesthesiology departments. IMPLICATIONS: We examined the economic impact of longer-than-average anesthesia times on four academic anesthesiology departments in three ways: the estimated loss in revenue under a flat-fee system, the excess operating room sites staffed, and the potential gain in revenue if the surgeries were of average length. These results should be considered both in productivity measurements and strategies for operating room management.

Designing meaningful industry metrics for clinical productivity for anesthesiology departments.

IMPLICATIONS: Clinical productivity measurements that account for differences in clinical settings and concurrencies provided more precise comparisons between two anesthesiology groups. The data show that different concurrencies confound the current industry standard, "per full-time equivalent" measurements, whereas "per operating room site" and "per case" measurements allowed for more meaningful comparisons.

Measurement of individual clinical productivity in an academic anesthesiology department.

BACKGROUND: The ability to measure productivity, work performed, or contributions toward the clinical mission has become an important issue facing anesthesiology departments in private practice and academic settings. Unfortunately, the practice and billing of anesthesia services makes it difficult to quantify individual productivity. This study examines the following methods of measuring individual productivity: normalized clinical days per year (nCD/yr); time units per operating-room day worked (TU/OR day); normalized time units per year (nTU/yr); total American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) units per OR day (tASA/OR day); and normalized total ASA units per year (ntASA/yr). METHODS: Billing and scheduling data for clinical activities of faculty members of an anesthesiology department at a university medical center were collected and analyzed for the 1998 fiscal year. All clinical sites and all clinical faculty anesthesiologists were included unless they spent less than 20% of their time during the fiscal year providing clinical care, i.e., less than 0.2 clinical full-time equivalent. Outliers, defined as faculty who had productivity greater or less than 1 SD from the mean, were examined in detail. RESULTS: Mean and median values were reported for each measurement, and different groups of outliers were identified. nCD/yr identified faculty who worked more than their clinical full-time equivalent would have predicted. TU/OR day and tASA/OR day identified apparently low-productivity faculty as those who worked a large portion of their time in obstetric anesthesia or an ambulatory surgicenter. tASA/OR day identified specialty anesthesiologists as apparently high-productivity faculty. nTU/yr and ntASA/yr were products of the per-OR day measurement and nCD/yr. CONCLUSION: Each of the measurements studied values certain types of productivity more than others. By defining what type of service is most important to reward, the most appropriate measure or combination of measures of productivity can be chosen. In the authors' department, nCD/yr is the most useful measure of individual productivity because it measures an individual anesthesiologist's contribution to daily staffing, includes all clinical sites, is independent of nonanesthesia factors, and is easy to collect and determine.

Addition of dextrose 3.5% to intrathecal sufentanil for labour analgesia reduces pruritus.

PURPOSE: To determine whether the addition of a low concentration (3.5%) of dextrose would minimize pruritus while maintaining the quality of analgesia. METHODS: In a double blind study 48 parturients in early labour were randomized to one of two study groups: dextrose (Dex, n = 24; 10 microg sufentanil in dextrose 3.5%), or normal saline (NS, n = 24; 10 microg sufentanil in normal saline). Parturients received the study drug as the intrathecal injection of the combined spinal-epidural (CSE) technique for labour analgesia. Duration and degree of analgesia were measured until epidural analgesia was initiated or delivery of the baby. The intensity and distribution (above T6, T6-L1, and below L1) of pruritus were measured at five minute intervals during first 25 min after injection. RESULTS: Quality and duration of analgesia did not differ between groups, but the overall incidence of pruritus was less in the Dex group (88% vs 42%, P = 0.001). Within each region, the incidence of pruritus was less in the Dex group. In patients who had pruritus, for the Dex group, the incidence of pruritus in the upper region (>T6) was lower than the NS group. There was no difference in the lower regions. CONCLUSION: The addition of dextrose 3.5% to intrathecal sufentanil reduced the incidence of pruritus without affecting the duration or quality of analgesia in parturients in early labour. The distribution of pruritus in the Dex group was limited to below T6 suggesting that pruritus to intrathecal sufentanil is mediated at the spinal level.