MS-ACC Newsletter Heart of the Matter January 20, 2012 Dear Colleagues,   I hope all is off to a good start in the New Year.   As we all wait to find out how the SGR cuts or fix will be handled by Congress I hope all of you will find a way to become involved in issues that may arise in the state or federal legislatures that are of importance to our patients and practices.  Dr. Bob Wilkins from Hattiesburg joins me in working with the MS State Medical Society in monitoring issues in this legislative session in Jackson.   I will be speaking at a press conference during Capitol Day at the Mississippi State Capitol Building on Wednesday, January 25.   The MS Chapter of the ACC is collaborating with the Mississippi Rural Health Association in this effort to support legislation to prevent smoking in public buildings.  The data is overwhelming in support of the public health benefits and cost savings in healthcare expenditures for this type of preventive healthcare.  An added perquisite is that this astounding savings in morbidity, mortality, and healthcare dollars can be accomplished without legislative expenditure.   We have a great meeting organized for our MS Chapter of the ACC the evening of Saturday February 18that the Beau Rivage in Biloxi.  This is an especially good chance for our members from south Mississippi to join in our chapter activities, have dinner and an excellent CME from 6-8pm.  We had an excellent turnout for a similar meeting in Jackson in October.  All are welcome but I hope the members from south Mississippi will especially take advantage of this opportunity.  Please RSVP to Jenny White our chapter executive at JWhite@msmaonline.com.   I look forward to seeing all of you on Saturday February 18 at the Beau Rivage.  Please contact me at mmansour2662@gmail.com or Jenny White if you have questions.   Best regards, Michael  S-ACC Newsletter: Heart of the Matter November 1, 2011 We had an excellent chapter event in Jackson on October 11 at the MS Sports Museum in collaboration with our colleagues at the MS Chapter of the American College of Physicians.  Dr. Tracy Wang from Duke University and Dr. Tom Skelton from the University of MS were our program speakers.   We plan to have another chapter event on Saturday February 18th, 2012 at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi from 6-8pm.  We will have a guest speaker and dinner.  I hope many of you can attend especially all of you from the coast and south MS.  More information and registration is available online on the events page.   Important matters are at hand with upcoming elections and I hope all of you will support candidates that are in touch with issues important to our patients and our practices.  Please make your views and priorities known to your state and national legislators.   Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (Med PAC) recently recommended replacing the sustainable growth rate (SGR) with a Medicare payment model that would freeze payments to primary care physicians over the next 10 years while reducing payments to all other physicians by 5.9% per year between 2012 and 2014.  These cuts would be followed by a seven year freeze in Medicare payments to these other physician specialties.  The ACC strongly opposes MedPAC’s SGR plan.  A letter opposing the Med PAC plan has been introduced by Representative Michael Burgess, M.D. (R-TX) and Representative Gene Green (D-TX).  Ask your congressional representative to sign on to the Burgess/Green letter to MedPac regarding SGR cuts.   The ACC also supports TORT reform measures and opposes any further cuts in imaging as part of any plan to replace the SGR with a more acceptable reimbursement formula.   The ACC needs your help with upcoming RUC surveys due in November. If you receive a survey please take the time to complete it.    RUC Surveys are used to determine the Relative value of procedures cardiologists perform.  This information is then used by medicare to determine reimbursement for procedures.  The November surveys will be distributed related to the PCI ablation and extremity artery/vein ultrasound.  If you are randomly selected to receive a survey, please take 15-20 minutes to thoughtfully complete it.  Contact James Vavricek at 202-375-6421 or jvavricek@ace.orgif you have questions or would like to receive a survey.. MS-ACC Newsletter: Heart of the Matter September 27, 2011 We are back!  After change of our administrative personnel who help to get this letter out we are back in full active mode.  We are working with Jenny White and Charmain Kanosky at MSMA.  I know the Chapter will benefit greatly from their administrative expertise and  from the synergism of working with MSMA. In an effort to actively engage our members around the state we will try to have several meetings around the state for educational and improved communication purposes.  Our most immediate meeting will be at the MS Sports Museum on Tuesday October 11 with dinner at 6:30pm and meeting on atrial fibrillation to follow.  We have invited members of the MS Chapter of the ACP to join in this meeting.  I hope you can take the time to be with us.  I know you will enjoy the evening.  Please RSVP to Jackie Massey jmassey@acc.org by  Friday September 30 since seating is limited and a head count for dinner is required.  The dinner and program are complimentary. Dr. Thad Waites, Chair of the Board of Governors, American College of Cardiology and I recently attended the ACC Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. to represent the interests of our Chapter and the College to members of Congress.  There is general consensus that the SGR must be dealt with in a definitive way this year.  The debate is how to offset the cost of doing away with the SGR cuts due in January 2012.  Tort reform represented in congressional bill HR5 by Rep. Phil Gingrey(R-GA) and co- sponsored Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) could account for 200 billion of the the 300 billion dollars needed according to the Congressional Budget Office.  We will see if this gets traction going forward. Another topic of great interest to all of us and promoted at the conference is the use of AUC (appropriate use criteria) for imaging as a better way to control cost through best practice rather than the inefficient RBM (radiology benefits manager) used by many payers.  The College has developed the FOCUS program for all of us to use in this regard.  It has been adopted as the method of choice to guide reimbursement in Delaware and will likely become more prominent in guiding reimbursement in a rational evidenced based way with regards to imaging utilization.  Please look at FOCUS at the Cardiosource website and see if it would be helpful to your pracice.