Providers often hold three misconceptions about concurrency, according to Anesthesia Business Consultants President and CEO Tony Mira: that concurrency is synonymous with medical direction, it only applies to physicians or it only applies to certain insurance companies.
Mr. Mira shared six facts to clear up misconceptions:
1. Concurrency has nothing to do with medical direction and applies to all anesthesia cases performed by any type of provider.
2. Concurrency is the number of cases an anesthesia provider is involved in at the same time. It applies to all anesthesia cases performed by any type of provider and to all insurance companies.
3. A medically directing physician is not permitted to do his or her own anesthesia cases. Staff physicians cannot begin a case they will medically direct if a nonphysician anesthesia provider is unavailable.
4. If the staff physician is medically directing certified registered nurse anesthetists or anesthesia assistants, the staff physician is allowed to have up to four concurrent cases. The staff physician can be responsible for two resident cases at the same time. For student CRNAs, the staff physician can be responsible for two cases simultaneously.
5. If a CRNA is not being medically directed by a staff physician, the CRNA can be responsible for two SRNAs concurrently.
6. Minimal time overlaps may occur because clocks in the operating room aren't synchronized. Therefore, ABC recommends using a single time piece to denote anesthesia start time and anesthesia stop time. Use a 24-hour clock to make sure there is no confusion between a.m. and p.m.
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