Re: GEN -unsupervised CRNA'S
From: Efrain Ramirez (eramirez@icepr.com)
Mon Mar 27 18:14:11 2000
The courts will eventually decide--bucks will talk. As soon a
multimillion dollar lawsuit is awarded to a patient AND if the
anesthesits will have to deliver the money---it's all over.
At Mon, 27 Mar 2000, art fougner, md wrote:
>
>Just curious as to the group's take on this latest cost-saving measure
>by our friends at HCFA -
>
>HCFA to OK unsupervised nurse anesthetists, but controversy continues
>
>By Karen Pallarito
>
>WESTPORT, Mar 27 (Reuters Health) - A proposed rule allowing nurse
>anesthetists to administer anesthesia to Medicare patients without
>physician supervision is now expected to become final this June.
>
>Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, administrator of the Health Care Financing
>Administration, recently confirmed in a letter to Sen. Arlen Specter
>(R-Pennsylvania), that the administration intends to finalize the
>regulation by June.
>
>But more than two years after HCFA first proposed scrapping the
>supervision requirement, anesthesiologists remain up in arms over the
>looming change.
>
>Spearheading opposition to the rule is the American Society of
>Anesthesiologists (ASA), which last week urged Congress once again to
>intervene in the matter. The ANA cites University of Pennsylvania
>research showing a higher death rate in cases in which an
>anesthesiologist was not involved in supervising the nurse anesthetist.
>
>"It is obvious now that all concern for patient safety has been lost to
>bureaucracy," contends Dr. Ronald A. MacKensie, president of the
>35,000-member ANA. "HCFA is saying that it has made this proposal based
>on reasoning that anesthesia is 'relatively safe' now and that there is
>no evidence to compare the differences between anesthesiologists' care
>and nurses' care. That reasoning is dangerously flawed."
>
>As Reuters Health has reported, HCFA's December 1997 proposal called for
>deleting the requirement that certified registered nurse anesthetists
>administer anesthesia only under the supervision of an operating
>practitioner or anesthesiologist. The change, HCFA said, would "allow
>greater flexibility to hospitals and practitioners" and "give deference
>to state scope of practice law."
>
>Twenty-nine states now allow nurse anesthetists to provide anesthesia
>without a doctor's supervision.
>
>The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, a chief proponent of the
>change, last week reiterated its support. "HCFA's decision supports
>what the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists has been saying all
>along--that CRNAs provide safe, high-quality anesthesia care," according
>to AANA President Jan Stewart.
>
>In an interview with Reuters Health, Stewart questioned the
>applicability of the study cited by the anesthesiologists as evidence of
>poorer outcomes and said that she believes the real issue is one of
>"control."
>
>-Westport Newsroom 203 319 2700
>
>Art
>
>--
>art fougner, md
>
>A series of 1000 cases begins with but a single anecdote.
>
--
"The things you learn after you know everything are the important ones"
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