What are anesthesiology political action committees?
Political action committees are organizations that endeavor to help anesthesiologists and their patients. They work to improve anesthesiology education, reimbursement and patient safety. Recent initiatives include: Successfully advocating for stopping proposed Medicare reimbursement cuts despite a presidential veto Successfully advocating to overturn (will not be corrected until 2010 however) the unfair teaching rule that singled out anesthesiology. This rule stated that any attending that was supervising two resident rooms could only bill for one half the normal charges from each roomeven if the case times overlapped by only one minute. This rule has especially threatened teaching programs and formerly contributed to a number of anesthesiology residencies closing down. (While at the same time that the number of CRNA programs has been growing.) There are many more issues we are fighting for including: 1. Rural pass through- allowing more anesthesiologists to practice in rural settings.
