Medical Service Organizations (“MSOs”) may offer the best hope for independent anesthesia practices in the future......if they can overcome the “not invented here” syndrome. The internal improvement of an anesthesia group may come from external sources.
It is a simple as this:
- Several anesthesia groups join in a new organization, the MSO, to obtain support functions such as billing, accounting, legal, human resources, and seasoned managers
- With adequate total revenue these services by high quality providers may be obtained for much less than the individual groups.
- The sophistication of services available to the MSO may exceed those available to the indvidual groups.
- The interaction of between the groups in an MSO will allow for faster dissemination and early adoption of new ideas and best practices.
- The anesthesia practices in an MSO remain independent making their own local decisions on the myriad of decisions and issues facing any anesthesia group
- The anesthesia practices maintain their own contractual relationships with the facilities they serve
- Groups in an MSO work together to keep their practices financially and operationally viable.
- The MSO will have the sophisticated leadership, a non-physician director paid for by the savings on traditional support services, to understand and respond future threats and opportunities.
What are the rewards for administration, governing board, or corporate management to give its anesthesia service the latiitude to try something so new and different. An MSO reduces an anesthesia services operational costs, allows for the injection of news ideas, and essentially provides the facility an insurance policy for continuity of operations. Or they can have the anesthesia management companies ("AMCs") and physician practice management companies ("PPMCs") provdie the same services for a high cost and watch the AMC’s and/or PPMC’s profits leave their community and go over the horizon.