Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield reverses decision to put a time limit on anesthesia
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield says it won't tie payments to the length of time a patient went under anesthesia
One of the country’s largest health insurers reversed a change in policy Thursday after widespread outcry, saying it would not tie payments in some states to the length of time a patient went under anesthesia.
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said in a statement that its decision to backpedal resulted from “significant widespread misinformation” about the policy.
“To be clear, it never was and never will be the policy of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to not pay for medically necessary anesthesia services,” the statement said. “The proposed update to the policy was only designed to clarify the appropriateness of anesthesia consistent with well-established clinical guidelines.”
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield would have used "physician work time values," which is published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as the metric for anesthesia limits; maternity patients and patients under the age of 22 were exempt. But Dr. Jonathan Gal, economics committee chair of the American Society for Anesthesiologists, said it's unclear how CMS derives those values.
