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Edition: April 2021 |
Table of Contents |
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Letter from the Editor |
The ACR 2021 Annual Meeting is rapidly approaching on May 15 through 19. This year’s meeting will again be held virtually. Participants will have the opportunity to take part in the Council Business meetings, CME Programming, Caucus Meetings, Moreton Lecture, and Convocation recognizing New Fellows. In an effort to optimize the meeting schedule, caucus meetings will take place virtually a week prior to the annual meeting. For all those interested in participating, the FRS Caucus meeting will be held at 10:00 am and the Southern Caucus meeting at 12:00 pm on Saturday, May 8th. Larry Muroff, MD, FACR, will be speaking about private practice contracts and negotiation for the Resident and Fellow Section and Point/Counterpoint: Stay Privately Held or Join Corporatization for the YPS Section, both being held on Saturday, May 15th. To view the ACR Annual Meeting Program and Register Click Here I would also like to note that two of our FRS members that are running for ACR 2021 positions, Dr. Pat Mergo for the Council Steering Committee and Dr. Boyd “Nick” Hatton for the College Nominating Committee. Please consider supporting them to increase FRS representation within the ACR. I hope you will join us for the in-person FRS & FRBMA Annual Meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes in July. Click Here Please consider all Florida Residents and Fellows applying for the “H. Martin Northup Resident Leadership Award.” Each year, this award will be given to a 2nd year Florida radiology resident who will be the 3rd year at the time of the fellowship to support the cost of 2-night hotel accommodations and tax for attending the FRS annual summer meeting. The award recipient will have an officer mentor and will attend all functions including the board meeting. The application deadline is May 15th. Click Here Hope to meet with you all virtually in May!
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Laura Vallow, M.D. Secretary, FRS Vallow.Laura@mayo.edu |
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Meet Your 2020 – 2021 FRS Executive Committee |
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President Douglas Hornsby, MD |
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President-Elect Rajendra Kedar, MD, FACR |
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Treasurer Chintan Desai, MD |
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Secretary Laura Vallow, MD |
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FRS President’s Message |
Spring is arriving in the rest of the country, and the students have just left from their bacchanal carrying the spring weather north to the remainder of the country but; hopefully, not taking the Covid-19 virus to their family and friends. I hope everyone has had at least one of their vaccinations and has been able to venture out into the sunlight. Some of us have been living in a virtual cave and can now enjoy seeing the pleasant weather of spring and the freedom given to us by our vaccinations and the reduced risk from thus far surviving the pandemic. Spring also means the ACR Meeting is around the corner. Please be sure to register for the ACR virtual meeting from May 15 – 19. All Councilors should register and vote. All Alternate Councilors should register and be prepared to vote if needed. Remember our home favorites and those who may best represent us. I also recommend for everyone to attend the ACR Council Town Hall. Please register and attend this virtual meeting scheduled for April 14 at 8:00 p.m. This will give us an overview of items to be discussed at the virtual annual meeting. The ACR Caucus meetings are scheduled, and the FRS Caucus meeting will be at 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 8. Please join us at the Southern States’ Caucus from 12:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. on the same date. If you need the caucus schedules for other societies, which will also occur in the afternoon of the same day, please contact Lorraine at the FRS office. Our FRS annual meeting on July 16 – 18 will be in person. The brochures for the meeting should have arrived in your mailbox. Please register for your stay at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes. I look forward to seeing friends and colleagues. Someday, but not now, we will talk of this time, and tell our children and our grandchildren how it was back then. In a similar vein, a special thanks to our legacy members who have carried us this far and have been a great resource to us professionally, as well as in our personal lives. To quote one of our great leaders, Charlie Williams, “All you really have in life is your family.” Success in your professional life and in business comes at a price that your family has to pay. Please be sure to thank our legacy members for all they are doing, and the resource they are now and will be in the future. Please remember to give thanks to our families for the price they pay for our continued success.
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Doug Hornsby, MD President, FRS doughornsby@msn.com |
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Past President Patricia Mergo, MD, FACR |
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Legal Counsel Michael M. Raskin, M.D., J.D., FACR |
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FRBMA President’s Message |
Are we ready for the Appropriate Use Criteria Program?
The appropriate use criteria (AUC) program begins full implementation on January 1, 2022. It has been 7 years since the bill that created AUC was passed into law. The AUC program was established by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) back in 2014. Simply stated, the law requires that physicians ordering advance diagnostic imaging (MRI, CT, PET, and Nuclear Medicine) on Medicare patients must use a Clinical Decision Support Mechanism (CDSM). The penalty if they do not use CDSM results in radiologists and technical imaging providers not getting paid for that study.
CDSM’s are approved and licensed software applications that adhere to AUC requirements and essentially evaluate the appropriateness of imaging studies. The CDSM is designed to evaluate the clinical indications of a patient and then select and rank the appropriate imaging study that should be ordered for that patient. If after using CDSM, the study ordered by the referring clinician is not the most appropriate imaging option, the ordering physician is permitted to order the study they initially selected. If this occurs, there is no penalty to either the radiology provider, imaging provider, or the ordering physician. A penalty only occurs if the ordering provider does not consult with a CDSM and the imaging provider performs the study anyway. I repeat, the penalty is that the radiologist and the imaging provider do not get paid.
Our practice has been strategizing this implementation for several years. Our original goal was to have a CDSM technology solution integrated with the physician portal of our EMR. We wanted the ordering process we put in place to be helpful and easy to use that would facilitate the use of CDSM. Unfortunately, we will not meet our goal and we are now looking at an interim step.
Honestly, I just scratch my head trying to figure out why it has taken 7 years to implement this program. Our medical community is no more ready now than we were 3 years ago. I don’t have an answer as to why that is the case but here are some of my observations:
(1) The penalty is applied to radiologists and imaging providers, neither of which have any direct role in AUC.
(2) Referring physicians, for the most part, are unaware of their role in AUC, and those that are somewhat aware do not feel this is an issue for them to solve.
(3) The implementation has been stopped and restarted 3 times. So, software vendors are reluctant to invest in AUC software development without being certain when it will be needed. Whatever the reason, this will not go smoothly and we can all expect a very hectic start to this full implementation.
We do not have the technology solution we were planning and are developing a Plan B. We will be spending the next 7 months preparing the local medical community for AUC. There will be 3 parts to this plan. Over the next 2-3 months, we will hold general sessions at our office to discuss with medical practices the history and the requirements of AUC and the role that each office will have in preparing. Next, we will send our marketing staff to each office to assist them in getting signed up with ACR Select, this is a free version of CDSM. Finally, from October through the end of the year, we will work with offices to test the system and show them how to use ACR Select and actually enter and send our practice orders. There are very specific rules on how this needs to be done within the ordering office. None of this is very complicated but it seems necessary. Each ordering group could walk themselves through these steps without our help; but, up till now, there is little evidence that will occur. I hope this works. It’s not the best plan but Plan B’s usually aren’t.
To all the practice managers out there, you should assess your medical community. I hope your referring community is more prepared than what we are experiencing. If your referring community is not ready to address the requirements of AUC themselves then you have to decide what your role should be in getting them ready.
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John Detelich, CPA, MBA, CEO President, FRBMA jdetelich@radassociates.com |
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Legislative Update |
April 1st and this is no joke, marks the halfway point through the Legislative Session.
The big news this week is that the House and Senate passed SB 72, the Covid Liability Protection bill that applies to businesses and health care providers. The Governor signed the bill into law on Monday, March 29th. The bill took effect upon becoming a law and it applies retroactively as to the date the alleged injury occurred. It is not retroactive in regards to current cases that have already been filed. The statute of limitations for Covid claims is limited to one year after the damages occur or one year after the bill becomes law.
Being at the halfway point means that legislation that has not moved forward may not make it across the finish line. However, nothing is dead until the Session ends. One of the bills we have been tracking, Autonomous Practices by Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, has not been heard in any of its Senate or House committees. So, it appears to be dead for this Session.
The Physician Assistants’ bills are moving in the House and the Senate. The bills have been amended on both sides and the language that gave them more autonomy was amended out. Still in the bill is language that gives supervising physicians the ability to determine how many PAs he or she may supervise, removing the 4 to 1 ratio that is currently required. The bill also allows PAs to prescribe certain psychiatric medicine under supervision. These bills look likely to pass, but there is more of the Session to get through.
The Capitol remains closed to the public. The House is allowing the public to come to Committee and testify if they fill out the appropriate paperwork within the allotted time frame. There is a cap on how many are allowed into the Committee room.
To say it has been a challenging session would be an understatement.
If you have any questions about the Session, please contact me directly. |
Thanks, and stay well, Alison Dudley, FRS Lobbyist AlisonDudley@dudleyandassociates.com |
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Martin Northup Resident Leadership Award |
H. Martin Northup Resident Leadership Award – A scholarship opportunity for Florida Diagnostic Radiology, Radiation Oncology, and Medical Physicist 2nd year Residents or graduate students.
Martin Northup was very committed to radiology resident education and advancement. To eternally honor and remember him, the board of the FRS Foundation has established a special award bearing his name, the “H Martin Northup Resident Leadership Award.” Each year, this award will be given to a 2nd year Florida radiology resident who will be the 3rd year at the time of the fellowship to support the cost of accommodations for attending the FRS annual summer meeting. The resident will have an officer mentor and will attend all functions including the board meeting. The goal is to develop future leaders in Radiology and develop promising residents to assume greater roles in the society, such as President of the Resident and Fellow’s Section. The award recipient will be chosen for the 2021 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, July 16-18, 2021 by the Scholarships and Grants committee based on a competitive application process.
Please click here to download an application. Return your completed application to lroger@edusymp.com by May 15, 2021 in order to be considered for this award. |
Thank you, Jeffrey Stone, M.D., FACR President, FRS Educational Foundation |
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2021 Annual Meeting of the FRS & FRBMA |
Please join the Florida Radiological Society and the Florida Radiology Business Management Association for the 2021 Annual Meeting at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, July 16-18, 2021. The meeting will focus on “Excelling in an Everchanging Paradigm” and will feature lectures by faculty who are leaders in the practice of radiology. We look forward to seeing you in Orlando, Florida. |
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Job Posting Opportunities |
Florida Radiological Society is pleased to introduce the opportunity for interested parties to advertise for potential jobs in our monthly FRS Ebrief bulletin.
Advertisement pricing is as follows:
Ebrief Job Posting pricing: 3 months ($100 monthly) 6 months ($90 monthly) 12 months ($80 monthly)
Please contact Lorraine Roger, our Society Administrator for further information on how to advertise in our monthly publication. Phone: (813) 806-1070 Fax: (813) 806-1071 Email: lroger@flrad.org
We feel that this will provide a valuable service to both our members and our Florida community of Radiology.
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Thank you for your interest! Patricia Mergo, MD, FACR |
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Become a PAC Member Today |
Attention FRBMA Members! Please support the cause. We encourage you to be PAC members and supporters; you do not have to belong to the FRS. Donations can be made online through our PAC website www.FLRADPAC.org. Thank you for your donation.
It is critical that we support both our Florida PAC and RADPAC in order to bolster our voice in Tallahassee and Washington, respectively. Please join FRS lobbyist Alison Dudley in her special appeal for all Florida radiologists to become Florida PAC members. If you would like to help FRS defend radiology against untoward legislation and introduce bills that have a positive impact on our practices, we need your financial support to re-elect our friends in the state House and Senate. The FRS can also show you simplified ways on how to sign up your radiology group. Contact Lorraine Roger at lroger@flrad.org or contact Alison Dudley at alisondudley@dudleyandassociates.com for more information. |
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Telephone (813) 806-1070 • Fax (813) 806-1071 5620 W. Sligh Avenue • Tampa, Florida 33634 |
The E-Brief is an exclusive member benefit of Florida Radiological Society, delivering monthly member, chapter and industry news. Please do not reply to this automatic e-mail. For comments or questions about the E-Brief, please contact lroger@flrad.org. |
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