Mustafa Fattah is a medical fellow with the NBC News Health and Medical Unit.
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is trying limit the amount of time it’ll pay for anesthesia during surgeries and medical procedures in Connecticut, New York and Missouri. The health insurer quietly announced the new reimbursement policy last month. It triggered outrage from the American Society of Anesthesiologists, but otherwise went unnoticed. That changed Wednesday, following the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City.
“The issue here is that the time, the length of surgery, is a function of the surgeon, not the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist is really at the mercy of the surgeon for however long they need to take to do the surgery well,” said Dr. Dhivya Srinivasa, the founder and chief surgeon at the Institute for Advanced Breast Reconstruction in Los Angeles. “In my arena, I’m a breast cancer reconstructive surgeon. There is a wide range of how long it will pay based on complexity,” Srinivasa said.
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