Posted by Logistics on August 4, 2009, 2:53 pm, in reply to "The Future???"
If you consider the direction that healthcare reform is headed, it seems likely that AAs and CRNAs will both be in high demand. The decreased compensation that will likely follow from reform, however it manifests itself, means that anesthesiologists will be looking for ways to keep their bottom line high. The only way to accomplish such an endeavor is to perform multiple cases at once, thereby necessitating increased employment of AAs and CRNAs. Looking forward, it also seems unlikely that CRNAs going to a doctarate level degree will serve to benifit healthcare in any way or form. CRNASs (with doctarates) would be looking for greater compensation in a world where the same job can be done for a lesser value by already well trained anesthesia providers. In addition, a doctarate program takes longer to complete, again providing no benifit to healthcare, which is already short on anesthesia providers. So, my opinion is that CRNAs and AAs will increase in demand and that compensation for our services will change very little.
