Commercial Health Insurance Companies: Time to make a New Year’s Resolution to Put Patients Before Profits

As anesthesiologists, we devote ourselves to patient care. We are the undisputed guardians of patient safety. Before surgery, we carefully assess your health, consider existing medical conditions to determine the resources and medical expertise needed. Throughout the procedure, we manage your safety and monitor your progress, deliver anesthetics, and expertly resolve unexpected medical complications that may arise. While the surgeon focuses on what brought you to the operating room, we enable a pain free and safe process for you. After surgery, we manage your pain to ensure you are comfortable and coordinate successful recovery with other physicians and health care professionals.

It is not a secret that America’s health insurance companies have recorded record profits in recent years. The American Society of Anesthesiologists and many other medical specialty societies are severely concerned about a troubling trend by commercial health insurers to unilaterally undercut established billing and payment norms without consideration for the impact these policies have on patients and the health care professionals who are providing their care.

It’s time for the insurance companies to turn over a new leaf and begin putting patients over profits. Seems like the perfect time for a New Year’s Resolution for health insurance companies. It’s pretty simple:

• ✓   Prioritize patient care over corporate profits.
• ✓   Promise to halt all efforts to limit necessary care for patients, including limiting the duration of anesthesia care.
• ✓   Acknowledge the unique needs of patients with health conditions and risk factors—like high blood pressure, significant heart disease, or uncontrolled diabetes—and support the physicians who care for them.
• ✓   Commit to respecting the physician-patient relationship and reforming prior authorization systems that undermine physician expertise and directly limit patient care.
• ✓   Work with anesthesiologists and other physicians, not against them, to improve access to care.