At the start of my Presidency, I pledged that ASA must focus greater attention on the vital issue of recognizing, preventing, and treating burnout. As you will see in this report, that was one of many successful initiatives we launched in 2024. I’ll highlight some of those initiatives here:
On the commercial payer front, ASA partnered with the American College of Radiology and the American College of Emergency Physicians to take on big insurance companies for their failure to pay physicians’ independent dispute resolution awards within the time frame established in the No Surprises Act.
Another insurance company issue developed in the form of our struggle with Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Health Care Service Corporation’s plans to stop payments for physical status modifiers. We’ve met with those companies, and we continue to voice our opposition, but they have not yet budged to date. Late in 2024, ASA partnered with anesthesiologist leaders in the states slated to be affected by yet another Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield proposed policy change. Anthem announced that they would deny payments to anesthesiologists for cases that exceeded an arbitrary time limit. We successfully convinced Anthem to reverse that ill-conceived and irresponsible plan.
Each year, our state affairs team reviews more than 1,000 pieces of legislation—and at least 500 proposed regulations—from across the country. This year we protected our patients from dangerous scope-of-practice expansion legislation in 17 states.
The battle to preserve physician-led care for our Veterans continues. Our decade-long campaign remains focused on blocking the VA Office of Nursing Services from expanding the nurse anesthetist-only model of practice throughout VA facilities—removing physicians from the care of our nation’s most deserving patients.
Workforce challenges remain a high priority for ASA leadership. In addition to our ongoing work through the ASA-led Workforce Summits, we continue to push for congressional action on workforce legislation. In June, our journal posted a special article on workforce titled, “Closing the Chasm: Understanding and Addressing the Anesthesia Workforce Supply and Demand Imbalance.” In it, the authors outline emerging trends in staffing and offer suggestions for sorely needed short- and long-term solutions.
An important aspect of the workforce challenge is burnout and physician wellness. We launched the SafeHaven Program in June, with the support of the ASA Charitable Foundation. It’s a program for you and your family members to access confidential counseling, peer coaching, financial and legal resources, and concierge services. To date, more than 240 of our colleagues have subscribed to this program.
Our Early-Career Membership Program continues to be a success, providing anesthesiologists in their first three years after training with a wealth of educational and career development resources, all at a low, affordable price. We also launched the ASA Mentoring Program, an online matching tool to pair mentees and mentors to facilitate real-world advice and experience-sharing.
ASA’s success as an organization is due in large part to the tireless efforts of all of you, who represent our specialty so well. Although we remain challenged by a constant barrage of threats, I am confident that our role delivering and leading perioperative care is secure. I am also confident that the incoming leadership of ASA President Donald E. Arnold, MD, FACHE, FASA, along with CEO Brian Reilly, MBA, CAE, and our Executive Committee, Administrative Council, Board of Directors, House of Delegates, and ASA staff will support our Society and preserve the highest level of anesthesia care, pain medicine care, and critical care, both now and in the future.
The most rewarding aspect of my year as President has been hearing from you—both digitally and in person. I sincerely thank you for your continued efforts on behalf of our patients and our specialty, and for giving me the tremendous honor of leading ASA.
Date of last update: February 19, 2025