VOLUME 26, ISSUE 2
Scott E. Kercheville, MD ASA Director
ASA DIRECTOR’S INTERIM REPORT
The 2014 March Interim Meeting of the ASA Board of Directors convened on March 1st at the Hotel Intercontinental O’Hare in Chicago. The Texas Delegation included Drs. John Zerwas, Mary Dale Peterson, Scott Kercheville, Patrick Giam, Martin Giesecke and Kristina Goff (UT Southwestern Resident). There was an additional Texan in attendance; Melissa Zhu, Texas Tech El Paso medical student, who serves as Secretary of the ASA Medical Student Component.
Dr. Mark Singleton (Director-CA), Caucus Chair called the Western Caucus meeting to order on Saturday, March 2, 2014 at 7:10 AM. Dr. Scott Kercheville served as Vice- Chair and Dr. Peter Dunbar (Director-WA) served as Secretary.
Following introductions of members of the Caucus, discussion began on the Board Handbook for this meeting. There was extensive discussion on the Georgia Society Resolution that followed up on the 2013 Rovenstine “challenge” by Dr. John Neeld (GA).
It advocated that the ASA spend $1 million for “research investigating the specific and unique impact of anesthesiologists” on patient care. Many members related a sense of urgency in the respective states and across the U.S. how this research is essential to fend off attacks by our adversaries.
The remainder of the time was devoted to discussion on the pending SGR repeal legislation. Shortly before this Board Meeting, the Administrative Council recommended that the ASA defer support at the present time.
Dr. Charles Anderson (Alt. Director-OR) announced there would be a Western Caucus Candidates Committee meeting in the afternoon. The candidates for election from the Western Caucus are Dr. Mary Dale Peterson for re-election to Assistant Treasurer, Dr. Linda Mason (CA) for re-election to Secretary and Dr. Stan Stead (CA) for re-election to Vice-President for Professional Affairs. Dr. Dan Cole (AZ) will be running for President Elect after serving this past year as First Vice-President.
The Caucus was adjourned at 8:35 AM for an Educational Session per the new Board Meeting routine. Dr. Jane Fitch (OK), ASA President began that session at 8:55 AM and Dr. James Grant (MI), Treasurer gave the usual updates to the budget and proposed revisions to the budget from recommendations received at this meeting.
Mr. Manuel Bonilla, ASA Chief Advocacy Officer then presented a history of the SGR repeal legislation and ASA efforts to date. From that, he then detailed the specific features of the current bill as it exists in the Congress. The primary portion is the total repeal of SGR with 0.5% per year updates for the next 5 years followed by 5 years of 0% updates.
Ms. Sharron Merrick of the ASA Washington Office and Dr. Stan Stead attempted to explain 2 additional payment methodologies in the bill, which are the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the Alternative Payment Models (APM). Both of these are geared to moving physician payments away from Fee-For-Service models (FFS) and will pit providers against each other for pools of monies in winners and losers strategies.
Review Committees began at 9:50 AM and continued until 12:30 PM. They consisted of reports from committees under each of the following divisions of the Board of Directors:
