How we work
Decision first. Evidence behind it.
Anesthesia groups negotiate for a living. Most hospitals negotiate an anesthesia contract every few years. We close that gap with your own numbers, and we stay on your side of the table the whole way.
Four steps
- Step 1ListenA 30-minute call with your leadership team. What is on your desk, what the deadline is, what the board will ask. We tell you what we would look at first, and whether you need us at all.
- Step 2MeasureWe build the model from your own OR, billing and contract data: coverage by location and hour, staffed hours against used hours, collections by payer, the care-team mix and the request itself, line by line.
- Step 3DecideTwo or three workable options, the trade-offs of each for cost, coverage and quality, and one clear recommendation you can take to the board.
- Step 4DeliverNegotiation, RFP or transition support through signature. Then, if you want it, quarterly monitoring to check the contract delivers what it promised.
What we ask for
- The current anesthesia agreement and every amendment
- The group’s latest request and the figures behind it
- OR case data by location, day and hour
- Payer mix for anesthesia services, or permission to request it from the group
- A named executive owner and access to your counsel
What you get
- A model of what your coverage should cost and what the group should collect
- Cost per anesthetizing location, defined the same way every year
- Options with trade-offs, and one recommendation
- A negotiation brief, RFP or transition plan, depending on the decision
- Contract language for coverage, data rights and metrics, for review with your counsel
What we will not do
- Take fees from anesthesia groups, staffing firms, billing companies or vendors
- Help an anesthesia group respond to a hospital’s RFP
- Staff your operating rooms or bill for anesthesia services ourselves
- Promise savings before we have seen your numbers
- Favor physician anesthesiologists, CRNAs or anesthesiologist assistants over one another
- Replace your legal counsel
Every model, no favorites
Our team includes physicians and CRNAs, and we work with every way of staffing anesthesia. The right model depends on your case mix, your state and your recruiting market, not on who is doing the advising.
- Physician anesthesiologist groups
- Anesthesiologists personally performing each case, one room at a time.
- CRNA groups
- Certified registered nurse anesthetists practicing independently or under surgeon or anesthesiologist supervision, as federal rules and state law allow.
- Care teams with CRNAs and CAAs
- Physician anesthesiologists directing CRNAs or certified anesthesiologist assistants across several rooms at once.
- National management companies
- Large anesthesia companies that staff, bill and manage the department under one contract.
- Hospital-employed departments
- Your own anesthesiologists, CRNAs and CAAs on the hospital payroll, or a hybrid of employed and contracted staff.
Confidentiality
Your data and our findings belong to you. We work under your confidentiality terms, and we share nothing with the anesthesia group unless you ask us to.
Whether the group knows we are involved is your choice. Some hospitals bring us to the table; others use us in the background.
Choosing an advisor
Whoever you hire, ask whose side they are on and who else pays them. Our guide to choosing an anesthesia consultant lists the questions to ask, and our FAQ gives our own answers.