Membership Insider JOIN OR RENEW TODAY As a member of the Santa Clara County Medical Association (SCCMA) and California Medical Association (CMA), you join more than 4,500 members in Santa Clara County and 50,000 members throughout Califonria of all specialties and practice settings who are actively protecting the practice of medicine and defending public health. We cannot do this alone. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a heavy toll on our physician community – from extreme mental and physical demands, to emotional stress and financial difficulty. Unfortunately, 2022 brings with it another significant MICRA battle as trial lawyers have once again put forth an initiative that has the potential to be incredibly harmful to all physicians, regardless of where they practice. Your support through SCCMA/CMA membership is absolutely critical to the success of our efforts on behalf of the profession of medicine. Please join or renew your membership today so we can put forth a united front and successfully defend MICRA in the coming year. NEW MEMBERS – Join SCCMA/CMA today and receive 15 months of membership for the price of 12. Starting in October, new members who join and pay in-full for the next year will receive the remaining months of this year for free! Join online at https://www.cmadocs.org/ join. CURRENT MEMBERS – Renew your commitment now to help keep the voice of medicine strong! Renew online at https://www.cmadocs. org/renew. MONTHLY PAYMENT OPTION AVAILABLE – New and renewing members have the option of paying dues with a credit card on a monthly basis. Simply select the monthly dues option when joining or renewing online.
CMA Updates COVID-19 Vaccine Reimbursement Toolkit and Guide
New AMA Report on the Uptick in Telehealth Use During the Pandemic
The California Medical Association (CMA) has updated two resources to help physician practices avoid delays and denials of claims for COVID-19 vaccine administration—the COVID-19 Vaccine Toolkit for Medical Practices (https://bit.ly/2YeClE5) and COVID-19 Vaccine Reimbursement Quick Guide (https://bit. ly/2Yb3Le7). These documents contain with the latest information on the important billing requirements specific to COVID-19 vaccine administration that can impact reimbursement. Providers should be aware there are some nuances to successfully submitting claims for COVID-19 vaccine administration services that differ from the normal claim submission process. These two resources are available free to all interested parties.
A new report based on the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Physician Practice Benchmark Survey describes the rapid uptick in physicians’ use of telehealth between Sept. 2018 and Sept. 2020. Over that period, the share of physicians in practices that used videoconferencing to provide patient visits increased from 14.3% to 70.3%. The report also shows that telehealth was used to treat a diverse set of patients with a variety of needs. In 2020, 58.0% of physicians said their practices used telehealth to diagnose or treat patients, 59.2% to manage patients with chronic disease and 50.4% to provide care to patients with acute disease. View the report at https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2020-prp-telehealth.pdf.
New Resource Provides California’s Physician Workforce Trends
AMA Releases Educational Resources to Advance Equity in Health Care
Physicians for Healthy California’s (PHC) GME Startup Solutions (https://www.phcdocs.org/gme-startup-solutions) has released a new resource to develop presentations on key trends in physician counts, geographic, demographic, and specialty distribution of active patient care physicians, medical students and residents, as well as projected demand and supply for primary care and psychiatry physicians. The free resource also includes information on CalMedForce program outcomes, including funded resident position counts, and geographic and specialty distribution of funded positions. GME Startup Solutions was launched by PHC in December 2020 and is focused on providing resources, events and programs that help California communities grow medical residency and graduate medical education programs in underserved areas and for the most needed specialties. The initiative is supported by CalMedForce and the University of California.
The AMA recently announced a series of CME and educational activities aimed at addressing the root causes of inequities, including racism and other structural determinants of health. The new content will equip physicians and other learners with core health equity concepts needed to support them as they continue to take action and confront health injustice. Additional new health equity-related modules are scheduled for release throughout the remainder of 2021 and beyond, covering key topic areas such as structural competency, public health, social sciences, critical race theory, and historical basis of disease. An overarching goal of the content is to help learners better understand how systems of power, structures, policies, and practices impact us all. Learn more at https://edhub.ama-assn.org/health-equity-ed-center.
The Bulletin | Third Quarter 2021 | 5
