FAQ for Executives

MAC was formed over 25 years ago by a merger of two (2) groups in Northern California. It has grown to over 100 physicians providing complete peri-operative services at five (5) hospitals and over 20 surgery centers. MAC services large trauma/tertiary facilities and smaller community hospitals. Our facilities are both non-profit and for profit, stand alone, or part of large national corporations. All of our physicians are board certified or will become certified within three (3) years of employment. Some are double boarded and many are fellowship trained in specialties, such as, cardiac, pediatrics, and pain.

MAC is one of the largest anesthesia groups in California. It is a fully integrated medical group that has structured its management, compensation, and reporting systems to successfully maintain and grow its business. It has a strong reputation for fairness and is composed of a pool of highly skilled anesthesiologists. Because of its reputation MAC is able to recruit from top anesthesia residency and fellowship training programs, such as, Stanford, UCSF, and Harvard. MAC’s priority is to establish a long-term relationship that focuses on clinical improvements, OR efficiencies, leadership, and strong relationships with the facility and community.

MAC has standardized all phases of the delivery of anesthesia care and has participated in multiple successful JCAHO surveys.
Examples of our activities include:

• Continuous nerve block program for acute postoperative analgesia
• Peri-operative Cardiac Risk Reduction protocol using beta-blockers and clonidine
• Patient controlled labor epidural analgesia program
• Transfusion committee participation to reduce the use of blood products
• Continuous evaluation of costs
• Protocol for the morbidly obese and sleep apnea patients
• SCIP compliance
(antibiotics, beta blockers, and temperature management)
• Moderate sedation policy for non-anesthesia providers
• Pre-Op evaluations

MAC is jointly participating in a “Hip Fracture Team” that has reduced total complications 38%, LOS 1.2 days, and readmissions 14%. Another initiative is blood management which has reduced transfused blood products by 20% Other didactic programs organized by our members include lectures on ultrasound guided peripheral nerve blocks in the pre-operative holding area, pediatric advanced life support (PALS) training, airway management techniques, and trans-cutaneous pacing during a code blue. Through our professional associations we report a significant amount of data into their respective data banks to measure our results against other peer groups.

A key measure of a group’s strength is its ability to deal with its own internal physicians in a proactive manner when behavioral, clinical, or other interactions are deemed inappropriate, disruptive, or otherwise unprofessional. MAC’s value, aside from its flexibility, is that it has the management structure to deal with member behavior issues decisively. This is not characteristic of smaller groups. MAC has developed policies and procedures to deal with disruptive physician behavior that is incorporated in our physician employment agreement.

MAC is “forward thinking” in terms of patient safety and has a mandatory drug testing program that is far more robust than similar programs in other groups. Most groups choose to do “suspicious testing” using collected urine samples. MAC uses serum testing and each physician is tested at least once annually. All of our physicians are required to participate in annual compliance training. New MAC physicians receive compliance orientation that includes a review of policies and procedures and detailed education on billing and coding with a follow-up exam.