The Anthem Inc. Anthem Anywhere application is seen in the App Store in Washington, D.C., U.S.
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said Thursday it was not going ahead with a policy change that would limit reimbursements for anesthesia during surgeries and medical procedures. The new policy would have reimbursed doctors based on time limits set by the insurer.
Anthem BCBS, one of the largest health insurers in the U.S., quietly announced the new reimbursement policy last month for Connecticut, New York and Missouri beginning in February. The policy change triggered outrage from the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
"There has been significant widespread misinformation about an update to our anesthesia policy. As a result, we have decided to not proceed with this policy change,"
a spokesperson for Anthem BCBS told NBC News.
"To be clear, it never was and never will be the policy of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to not pay for medically necessary anesthesia services. The proposed update to the policy was only designed to clarify the appropriateness of anesthesia consistent with well-established clinical guidelines."
Before the reversal, New York and Connecticut had stepped in to stop the plan from going into effect.
"Last night, I shared my outrage at a plan from Anthem to strip away coverage from New Yorkers who had to go under anesthesia for surgery,"
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Thursday. "We pushed Anthem to reverse course and today they will be announcing a full reversal of this misguided policy."
"After hearing from people across the state about this concerning policy, my office reached out to Anthem, and I'm pleased to share this policy will no longer be going into effect here in Connecticut,"
Sean Scanlon, Connecticut's comptroller, posted on X.
Typically, there is no set time limit for anesthesia during a surgery or procedure. The anesthesia is administered for as long as the procedure takes -- a decision determined by the doctor performing the procedure rather than the anesthesiologist.
"The issue here is that the time, the length of surgery, is a function of the surgeon, not the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist is really at the mercy of the surgeon for however long they need to take to do the surgery well,"
said Dr. Dhivya Srinivasa, founder and chief surgeon at Institute for Advanced Breast Reconstruction in Los Angeles.
"In my arena... There is a wide range of how long it will take based on complexity," Srinivasa said.