Now, almost 20 years later the group has almost 20 full-time Anesthesiologist and has an exclusive contract at Antelope Valley Hospital, a 90-Bed (76K Sq. Ft) Women’s and Infant’s Hospital, and a Surgery Center. Regional Valley Surgery Center is 18K square foot ASC that the hospital and physicians jointly own. It has 4 OR’s and 2 GI suites and is ½ mile from the hospital. They just bought a new C-arm and have a 98% patient satisfaction rate. We provide 24/7 coverage and have been the exclusive provider for most of those 20-years.
We are recruiting to fill the vacancies created by the growth of the area and recent retirement of providers. An anesthesiologist will be able to focus on general anesthesia with the opportunity to do cardiac if they have the interest.
As a partner with Anesthesia Partners of North Valley Medical Associates, you will be an independent contractor, and need to set up your own corporation. The leadership team will put you in contact with professionals in the areas of Business Management, Accounting, Finance and Insurance to make sure you have a full understanding of the model.
All providers that join the group are junior partners from day one. After 1-2 years there will be an opportunity to become a Senior Partner, which comes with voting rights in group decisions but there is no financial aspect to being a partner. Everyone here is treated equal and is on the exact same compensation plan.
Our team provides all aspects of Anesthesia coverage, except for Pediatrics. AVH has 9 Operating Rooms, that perform over 8,000 surgeries per year, 50% are inpatient and 50% are outpatient. The Emergency Department is the 2nd busiest in the state of California and gets 130K visits per year. The ICU has 22 Beds, with a normal census of 12- 14, and provides a 2:1 Nurse to Patient Ratio.
The Women’s & Infant’s Hospital has 18 Labor-and-Delivery Beds, with 4 ORs, and does about 4,500 deliveries per year. We have Anesthesiologist inhouse 24/7, as the epidural rate is about 75%. This center is where our sleep rooms are, so it’s very accommodating for our providers.
Dr. Chandra, Dr. Gill, and Dr. Hong currently cover cardiac cases, but we are looking to add one member to the team. The two requirements for Cardiac are the ability to do TEE & Open Hearts, as everything else is covered by the general OR aspect. The volume is not super high, the hospital does 5-10 open hearts a month, and a total of 100 – 150 Cardiac cases per month. In meeting with the team, they are all open to giving up as many Cardiac cases as possible. They would allow a new provider to take every Cardiac case, and they are happy to focus on other aspects, but still be part of the Cardiac call schedule. It is expected that a new provider would be able to do 30-50 total cardiac cases per year and can grow that over time.
Your call responsibilities will be 8 or 9 total days of call per month. This includes your responsibility for 2nd & 3rd call for General Anesthesiology.
Cardiac call is included in that and will be divided out between the 4 providers taking cardiac call. This call is rare to get called in and is just for open heart cases. You do not need to be in house for Cardiac call every night, but there may be times when you are on call for Cardiac & OR coverage, with Cardiac being the priority and they would call in the backup for any OR cases that overlapped Cardiac.
The OR coverage has a separate call from OB. The OR on call doctor gets their choice of cases on the day they are on call. Dr. Chenenda will make the OR assignments daily and will try to accommodate physicians when possible. There is a second and third back up for the OR call. The number two OR call physician may get called on occasion in the early evening but rarely will be there after 11:00pm. You will receive $750 a night for 1st call, $400 a night for 2nd call, $250 a night for 3rd call and $250 a night for heart call. The call schedule is made the month before and usually out by the 15th. If you want to trade/pick up extra call days you can work it out directly with your colleague.
The physicians receive $1000 a night for OB call. The hospital did 400 deliveries per month in 2018 with a 27% c-section rate. They can do v-backs, but it is rare. About 85% of the OB in the region comes here. The OB call goes for 24 hours from 7:00am to 7:00am. You should expect 7-14 deliveries and 1-2 c-sections on average, but it can get up to 15-20 deliveries on occasion. You can have a day off after call or do some light cases, it is up to you. If you work post call, you are usually out by 1:00pm. About 75% of OB patients request an epidural. Weekend deliveries are typically lighter due to less inductions and scheduled c-sections.
When on OB call you will just do the cases from the OB unit, which is on the third floor, and not the elective c-sections in the OR. There is a good-sized sleep room in the OB unit with a mini kitchen and a sitting area.
According to an OB Nurse, 19 years at AVH- “The nursing ratio is 2-1 in the LD unit and 1-1 in the OR. If a stat call 2 nurses will be in the room until the crisis passes.” For a stat c- section, a 30-minute guideline is in place, but it’s always done in 15-20 minutes. The nurses question the patients, and all patients fill out a questionnaire when they enter the unit.
Your OR paperwork includes a billing sheet, Anesthesia record, Pre-Op Evaluation (nurses do and will call you if there is a problem), a consent form and a Post Op form.
The Emergency Room is the second busiest in the state of California and tenth busiest in the nation. Board certified/trained Emergency Room physicians’ staff the ER. The ER has an annex located adjacent to the main ER that is used to move patients out of the ER and hold them until a bed opens in the hospital. This has been a highly effective way to keep the ER patients moving through and lighten up the congestion. Only 2% of the ER patients are not compensated and 30% are unassigned but have insurance. The hospital does not have OB-hospitalists but is looking into possible having them in the future. The trauma call is not too busy since this is not a regional referral center, which is down in the valley. The ER department is a rotational site for UCLA’s ER residency.
The ICU/CCU is staffed on a 2-1 ratio and cross-covered with Pulmonary/Critical Care physicians. According to Brenda Burns RN-ICU Director- “Our staff is well tenured and averages about 15 years of experience. We have 22 beds and we are busy. We work closely with the physicians to ensure the patients are taken care of in the unit.”