attendings giving breaks = fraud?

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A friend of mine who is a CRNA at the academic medical center in town told me that there are a lot of changes going on in the OR management since I left my surgical residency. My plan is most likely to start as an anesthesia resident in 2010. At any rate, she said that one of the changes is that they've been informed that they will no longer get breaks...becuase if an attending gives a break, that's fraud (becuase if the attending is assigned to one room, he/she can technically no longer be supervising other rooms)

Anybody else heard of this?

 

[Planktonmd]

A friend of mine who is a CRNA at the academic medical center in town told me that there are a lot of changes going on in the OR management since I left my surgical residency. My plan is most likely to start as an anesthesia resident in 2010. At any rate, she said that one of the changes is that they've been informed that they will no longer get breaks...becuase if an attending gives a break, that's fraud (becuase if the attending is assigned to one room, he/she can technically no longer be supervising other rooms)

Anybody else heard of this?

Theoretically if something goes wrong in another room the attending is supervising and he can not be immediately available the liability insurer might decline coverage.
This is not a new thing but people frequently ignore it.

 

[IceDoc]

Anybody else heard of this?

No.
The attestation of the attending must state that they were either there or immediately available for all critical parts of the case in order to bill as a supervisor.
Now, the interpretation of "immediately available" will be key. Obviously you cannot be immediately available if you're giving a break. However, you are also not immediately available if you are in another room during a "critical" time! So, something has to give. There will be case law to settle the fine points, and somebody will be made an example of. Or, maybe there already is, and I'm just behind the times. I suspect that their new policy was created out of an administrator's interpretation of the respective terms. The same thing happened with HIPPA (most hospitals now have policies stricter than HIPPA just to ensure they don't accidentally break the government rules).

 

[militarymd]

this is old news.

Attendings CANNOT give breaks to CRNAs or residents...if you do it is FRAUD....

However, to my knowledge, it has never been enforced.

 

[Noyac]

Some crna's become belligerent if they don't get their breaks. This is a good way to shut them up.

 

[Idiopathic]

sorry, but you have other attendings as backup, just as surgeons do, and if they have to go in a room, they can simply sign in and detail what they did in the room. all the attending attestatation says is that they were present for the important parts and available for all other parts. no fraud there

 

[urge]

this is old news.

Attendings CANNOT give breaks to CRNAs or residents...if you do it is FRAUD....

However, to my knowledge, it has never been enforced.

.

Mil is right. If an attending is covering 2 rooms he cannot be in one of them by himself. Thus, cannot give breaks to CRNAs or residents. I guess they made this rule so that you don't try to cover 2 rooms with one anesthetist.

Sorry, no break for you today!

 

[jwk]

this is old news.

Attendings CANNOT give breaks to CRNAs or residents...if you do it is FRAUD....

However, to my knowledge, it has never been enforced.

They can't give a break if they are medically directing or supervising other cases.

If they're not "signed on" to any cases, there's no reason they can't give breaks.