In the July 2019 “Administrative Update,” I reviewed the role of the ASA's Division of Professional Affairs in “Meeting the Challenges of Future Payment Systems.” The article described ASA's advocacy plan for traversing the ongoing shift of payment risk from payers to providers, more often described as the transition from volume to “value-based” payment systems (asamonitor.pub/3yJxxnF). Six months after that article was published, we entered both the COVID-19 pandemic and the tumultuous 2020 election year, with COVID-19 crowding out all other health care issues. At the same time, the divisive 2020 national election shifted America's political dynamic. As a result, the pace of many physician payment reforms slowed. In this article, I'll provide an updated review of ASA's payment advocacy team and also discuss some associated steps we anesthesiologists can take as we continue to prepare for a risk-based payment world.
At the time of this writing, we've...
