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Background: Insured patients who receive out-of-network care may receive a "balance bill" for the difference between the practitioner's charge and their insurer's contracted rate. In 2017, California banned balance billing for anesthesia care. This study examined the association between California's law and subsequent payments for anesthesia care. The authors hypothesized that, after the law's implementation, there would be no change in in-network payment amounts, and that out-of-network payment amounts and the portion of claims occurring out-of-network would decline., Methods: The study used average, quarterly, California county-level payment data (2013 to 2020) derived from a claims database of commercially insured patients. Using a difference-in-differences approach, the change was estimated in payment amounts for intraoperative or intrapartum anesthesia care, along with the portion of claims occurring out-of-network, after the law's implementation. The comparison group was office visit payments, expected to be unaffected by the law. The authors prespecified that they would refer to differences of 10% or greater as policy significant., Results: The sample consisted of 43,728 procedure code-county-quarter-network combinations aggregated from 4,599,936 claims. The law's implementation was associated with a significant 13.6% decline in payments for out-of-network anesthesia care (95% CI, -16.5 to -10.6%; P < 0.001), translating to an average $108 decrease across all procedures (95% CI, -$149 to -$64). There was a statistically significant 3.0% increase in payments for in-network anesthesia care (95% CI, 0.9 to 5.1%; P = 0.007), translating to an average $87 increase (95% CI, $64 to $110), which may be notable in some circumstances but did not meet the study threshold for identifying a change as policy significant. There was a nonstatistically significant increase in the portion of claims occurring out-of-network (10.0%, 95% CI, -4.1 to 24.2%; P = 0.155)., Conclusions: California's balance billing law was associated with significant declines in out-of-network anesthesia payments in the first 3 yr after implementation. There were mixed statistical and policy significant results for in-network payments and the proportion of out-of-network claims., (Copyright © 2023 American Society of Anesthesiologists. All Rights Reserved.)

Background: In addition to payments for services, anesthesia groups in the United States often receive revenue from direct hospital payments. Understanding the magnitude of these payments and their association with the hospitals' payer mixes has important policy implications., Methods: Using a dataset of financial reports from 240 nonacademic California hospitals between 2002 and 2014, the authors characterized the prevalence and magnitude of direct hospital payments to anesthesia groups, and analyzed the association between these payments and the fraction of anesthesia revenue derived from public payers (e.g., Medicaid)., Results: Of hospitals analyzed, 69% (124 of 180) made direct payments to an anesthesia group in 2014, compared to 52% (76 of 147) in 2002; the median payment increased from $242,351 (mean, $578,322; interquartile range, $72,753 to $523,861; all dollar values in 2018 U.S. dollars) to $765,128 (mean, $1,295,369; interquartile range, $267,006 to $1,503,163) during this time period. After adjusting for relevant covariates, hospitals where public insurers accounted for a larger fraction of anesthesia revenues were more likely to make direct payments to anesthesia groups (β = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.10 to 0.81; P = 0.013), so that a 10-percentage point increase in the fraction of anesthesia revenue derived from public payers would be associated with a 4.5-percentage point increase in the probability of receiving any payment. Among hospitals making payments, our results (β = 2.10; 95% CI, 0.74 to 3.45; P = 0.003) suggest that a 1-percentage point increase in the fraction of anesthesia revenue derived from public payers would be associated with a 2% relative increase in the amount paid., Conclusions: Direct payments from hospitals are becoming a larger financial consideration for anesthesia groups in California serving nonacademic hospitals, and are larger for groups working at hospitals serving publicly insured patients.