ASC Industry Leader to Know: Charles Tullius of Keystone Anesthesia Consultants

Charles Tullius, MD, is a board certified anesthesiologist with Keystone Anesthesia Consultants in Washington, Pa.

Dr. Tullius received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, completed his internship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and completed his residency at Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh. He is affiliated with St. Clair Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Tullius discussed strategies for improving anesthesiologist and ambulatory surgery center relationships in an interview with Becker's ASC Review. He said that it is important to bring shorter cases to the surgery center to minimize scheduling issues and reduce the risk of time gaps between cases.

"You want to aim for cases that are under an hour, and a lot of them," he said, adding that shorter cases are more conducive to profitable billing for the anesthesiology group and, ultimately, the surgery center. "Anesthesia billing goes by base units, then time units," he said. "Time units aren't worth very much once you cross over the two-hour mark, so in order to justify and generate a salary for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists, you need to have to have four CRNAs being supervised by one anesthesiologists, all performing a lot of cases."

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