A health-insurance company has announced a large-scale experiment involving consciousness. This is the experiment: if any particular surgical procedure lasted too many minutes, the insurance company will refuse to pay for anesthesia.
The company is Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. On November 1, 2024, the company announced:
“Beginning with claims processed on or after February 1, 2025, Anthem will change how it evaluates billed time on professional claims for anesthesia services (that is, CPT® codes 00100 through 01999). We will utilize the CMS Physician Work Time values to target the number of minutes reported for anesthesia services. Claims submitted with reported time above the established number of minutes will be denied.”
An Awakening of Interest
Observers who are not part of the experiment speculate about what it can teach the world. Here are a few of the intriguing questions:
- Will surgeons become more time-efficient, and find way to speed up any surgical procedures that seem to be taking too long?
- Will surgery be performed without anesthetic — or with anesthetic that is effective only during the first minutes of any lengthy procedure?
- How will patients respond in cases where anesthetic is stopped in the midst of a lengthy surgical procedure?
- How will patients respond in cases where the surgery is performed with full anesthesia and the patient is then billed for the cost that would previously have been paid by their insurance company?
The American Society of Anesthesiologists produced a helpful explanation, for the public, of this experiment and its potential benefits. The guide is called “Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Won’t Pay for the Complete Duration of Anesthesia for Patients’ Surgical Procedures.”
Side benefits of the experiment
This experiment in medical efficiency can be of interest also to two other groups of scholars.
First is consciousness. Philosophers still struggle to understand what exactly consciousness is. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says: “Perhaps no aspect of mind is more familiar or more puzzling than consciousness.”
Second is wokeness. The Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield experiment provides an entirely new meaning for the notion of “wokeness“.
UPDATE (December 5, 2024, later in the day)
The experiment has been terminated.apparently.
The Associated Press reports that “One of the country’s largest health insurers reversed a change in policy Thursday after widespread outcry, saying it would not tie payments in some states to the length of time a patient went under anesthesia.”
