Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield reverses controversial decision on anesthesia time limits

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield announced Thursday it would not put time limits on anesthesia after all, reversing a controversial new policy that was met with widespread backlash from the medical community.

Providers had been horrified when one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies said it planned to curtail the amount of anesthesia time it would reimburse in some states, including New York and Connecticut. The policy was set to go into effect in February.

Maternity-related care and procedures on patients under age 22 would have been exempt from the time limits.

But the company decided to reverse course Thursday, citing “significant widespread misinformation” about the new policy.

“To be clear, it never was and never will be the policy of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to not pay for medically necessary anesthesia services,” the insurance company said in a statement. “The proposed update to the policy was only designed to clarify the appropriateness of anesthesia consistent with well-established clinical guidelines.”

The American Society for Anesthesiologists had raised the alarm as the policy loomed, saying that the company’s method of using “physician work time values” — established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — as a means to determine how long someone should be sedated during a procedure was not an accurate or understandable metric.

They said it indicated a grave misunderstanding of how an operating room works, noting the practice would not take into account the “nuanced, unpredictable human element” of surgery.

Physicians were also concerned about the potential impact on patients’ trust and comfort level, further reflecting a “profound lack of understanding” of the anesthesiologist’s role, Dr. Rick van Pelt of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital told CNN.

“This is just the latest in a long line of appalling behavior by commercial health insurers looking to drive their profits up at the expense of patients and physicians providing essential care,” Dr. Donald Arnold said in a statement from the anesthesiologist society before Anthem reversed its policy.

Anthem’s latest decision came one day after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan. His death triggered a wave of rage-filled reactions on social media, most of them expressing contempt with the health insurance industry for causing the deaths of thousands of Americans by denying them coverage.

With News Wire Services

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