California Society of Anesthesiologists

CSA News

Price-Fixing Doctor’s Fees?

A California Lawmaker has written a bill to create a government-appointed commission to price-fix physician fees with the intent to control California healthcare costs, improve quality, and increase equity in California’s healthcare system. All objective evidence and experience suggests that government price-fixing of physician fees will accomplish none of those things. Today, I have healthcare economist and President of Fulcrum Strategies, Ron Howrigon, in the studio to analyze this bill and the unintended, and potentially disastrous, consequences to California’s patients, physicians, and hospitals.

Why it’s so hard for doctors to understand your pain

Each person experiences pain differently, from an emotional perspective as well as a physical one, and responds to pain differently. That means that physicians like myself need to evaluate patients on an individual basis and find the best way to treat their pain. Today, however, doctors are under pressure to limit costs and prescribe treatments based on standardized guidelines.

In California, a ‘Surprise’ Billing Law Is Protecting Patients and Angering Doctors

The state’s closely watched law is similar to an approach Congress is considering nationally.

The Other Opioid Crisis: Hospital Shortages Lead To Patient Pain, Medical Errors

Dr. Shalini Shah, the head of pain medicine at the University of California-Irvine health system, pulled together a team of 20 people in January to figure out how to meet patients’ needs. The group has established workarounds, such as giving tablet forms of the opioids to patients who can swallow, using local anesthetics like nerve blocks and substituting opiates with acetaminophen, ketamine and muscle relaxants.

Your job-search timeline

Physicians are unsure of how exactly, or when, to begin their job search. "Like many aspects of medical education, this is one of the things that you don't formally 'learn,'" says Sunny Jha, MD.