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This blog needs its own thread
- Thread starter toughlife
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- Jun 10, 2007
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I have been trying to stay out of the political stuff for a while. But that is just unbelievable. I wish this link could be posted on the ASA website for members to see. They should put this link right next to the link to the ASAPAC donations site. The fact is alot of us don't know the kind of trouble we as a specialty have gotten ourselves in. The most unfortunate thing is if CRNA independence becomes the norm nobody wins. Patients lose, we lose, and the specialty loses. No more research, no more new drugs, no more medical students interested in anesthesiology. I also believe eventually the CRNA's will lose. Without the AMA and ASA lobby, medicare and private insurers will continue to cut reimbursement especially for Nurses providing anesthesia. In my state they already make what I would make if I ran my own room everyday. They won't make much more than they make now, their malpractice will be higher, and their responsibilities will be much greater. Hospitals will stop paying them just like they don't pay alot of us. Why should they pay them and provide benefits when they can bill for themselves. They will have to set up billing offices, pay staff and will have a huge increase in overhead. They will have to come up with their own health insurance, retirment plans. Eventually something will go wrong and on the witness stand for the plantiff will be a board certified anesthesiologist with better credentials, better education and who has nothing else to do but testify in court cases and manage the anesthesia billing company he started. It will not be a pretty picture for anybody but the lawyers and the health insurance companies who won't continue to pay the same anesthesia reimbursement rates to a bunch of nurses. Will all of this happen? I doubt it. Hopefully we will see the error in our ways, all of our membership will give to the PAC, and the ASA will start to fight and win the battle for public opinion. If we don't win, I can always run a room, I can still supervise AA's, and I can wait for the public and legislators to find out just how much they had been lied to by a militant organization that is hell bent on practicing a medical specialty without a license.
