Billing for Hospital Anesthesia Services

Your anesthesiologist will bill separately for their professional services, as will your surgeon and the other physicians who provide services for you while you are hospitalized. The hospital will issue a separate bill for all of the services and items the hospital provided during your hospitalization, and that bill will include charges for the hospital’s role in the delivery of anesthesia services. For more information about hospital billings, you may contact your hospital’s financial counseling office. They can provide you with detailed information about billings for hospital services, including estimates of the expected cost of most surgeries and procedures.

Sutter hospitals charge for the hospital’s role in providing anesthesia services based on the specific type of anesthesia services you receive.

General Anesthesia

There are two levels of general anesthesia in the operating room: complex and standard general anesthesia. We charge one flat amount for complex general anesthesia services for cases lasting up to and including 180 minutes. For cases lasting longer than 180 minutes, there’s a different, higher charge. We use the same basic approach for standard general anesthesia. We charge a flat amount for cases lasting up to and including 180 minutes, and another, higher charge for standard general anesthesia cases that last longer than 180 minutes. This charge structure is designed to reflect the fact that cases lasting over 180 minutes require more hospital resources. If general anesthesia is administered outside of an operating room suite, there’s a single flat charge for the service, regardless of where it takes place in the hospital. There’s a separate pharmacy charge for the anesthetic gas and any other specific drugs used. To find out the amounts of these charges, or any other charges at the hospital where your surgery or procedure will take place, you should contact the financial counseling office at that hospital.

Regional Anesthesia

For monitored anesthesia care or regional anesthesia provided in the operating room, Sutter hospitals have a single flat-rate charge. There are no charges for anesthetic gases because they aren’t used, but there are separate pharmacy charges for the drugs used, including the epidural block and the drugs used for sedation.

Conscious Sedation

For conscious sedation, whether in the operating room or elsewhere in the hospital, there’s a single flat charge for the service, regardless of where it takes place in the hospital. There are no charges for anesthetic gases because they aren’t used, but there are separate pharmacy charges for the drugs used, including the drugs used for sedation.

Epidurals

For epidurals with minimal sedation in the operating room, there will be pharmacy charges for the drugs used, including the epidural block and the drugs used for sedation, but there won’t be a separate anesthesia service charge. The exception to this rule is in the labor and delivery area, where there may be a flat epidural management charge in certain situations.

For more details about these charges, and any other hospital charges, you may contact the patient financial counselor or at your hospital.

For more information about how Sutter bills for the hospital’s role in providing anesthesia services, you can call Sutter’s Anesthesia Information Line at 916-297-9940.

The hospital supplies the equipment, supplies and staff required to safely and effectively deliver anesthesia services in the hospital. The specific resources the hospital provides varies depending upon the type of anesthesia and your particular medical condition. The hospital also provides the anesthesia gases and other drugs, which, as noted above, are charged separately through the hospital’s pharmacy. Information about the hospital resources that are directly related to the provision of general anesthesia and regional anesthesia is generally summarized in the Equipment and Service Descriptions section. 

Sutter’s charges for anesthesia services, and for almost all hospital services, exceed the hospital’s allocated costs for those services. We encourage patients to review the table on this page to compare Sutter’s costs to the prices you or your insurer are charged.

You may call our Anesthesia Information Line at 916-297-9940.

• Anesthesia equipment, such as the anesthesia workstation and all components (e.g., gas induction components, ventilator, O2 monitor, CO2 monitor, BIS monitor, EKG, esophageal monitor, blood pressure monitor and pulse rate monitor), Smart IV pumps, rapid infusion pumps, fluid warmers, medical gas tanks, pumps, piping, gas flow monitors, and alarms, and maintenance and upkeep.
• Oxygen (excludes all other anesthesia gases billed under Revenue Code 25x).
• Instruments used by the anesthesiologist, including regular intubation instruments and scopes, and also those needed for difficult intubations.
• Anesthesia-related supplies that aren’t billed separately, including breathing circuits and other supplies.
• Anesthesia department staff, such as anesthesia medical device technicians.
• Anesthesia-related quality review and assurance staff and resources.
• Anesthesia-related patient medical records and records review.
• Anesthesia hazardous waste removal.

• Anesthesia equipment, such as the anesthesia workstation and all components (e.g., gas induction components, ventilator, O2 monitor, CO2 monitor, BIS monitor, EKG, esophageal monitor, blood pressure monitor, and pulse rate monitor), Smart IV pumps, fluid warmers, medical gas tanks, pumps, piping, gas flow monitors, and alarms, and maintenance and upkeep.
• Oxygen (excludes all other anesthesia gases billed under Revenue Code 25x).
• Instruments used by the anesthesiologist, including intubation instruments and scopes.
• Anesthesia-related supplies that aren’t billed separately, such as breathing circuit, nasal mask, sterile and other supplies.
• Anesthesia department staff, such as anesthesia medical device technicians.
• Anesthesia-related quality review and assurance staff and resources.
• Anesthesia-related patient medical records and records review.
• Anesthesia hazardous waste removal.

• Anesthesia equipment, including the anesthesia workstation and components (e.g., ventilator, O2 monitor, CO2 monitor, EKG, blood pressure monitor and pulse rate monitor), Smart IV pumps, fluid warmers and other anesthesia equipment items.
• Oxygen.
• Instruments used by the anesthesiologist.
• Anesthesia-related supplies that aren’t billed separately, such as the breathing circuit, nasal mask, sterile and other supplies.
• Anesthesia department staff, such as anesthesia medical device technicians.
• Anesthesia-related quality review and assurance staff and resources.
• Anesthesia-related patient medical records and records review.
• Anesthesia hazardous waste removal.

• Complex General Anesthesia 3 hours or less — Cmplx Gen Anes < =3 hours
• Complex General Anesthesia more than 3 hours — Cmplx Gen Anes > 3 hours
• Standard General Anesthesia 3 hours or less — Stnd Gen Anes <=3 hours
• Standard General Anesthesia more than 3 hours — Stnd Gen Anes > than 3 hours
• Monitored anesthesia care and regional anesthesia — Mon Anes Care/Regional

These are new descriptions for the specified services in the OR only.