Celebrating the Conclusion of the 6th Physician Leadership Program

By Dr. Hilary Worthen, Course Director

ThisApril, the 6th annual Bay Area Physician Leadership Program came to a close. The Physician Leadership Program originally began under the auspices of the ACCMA in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Schools of Public Health and Haas School of Business, and is now a program of the Bay Area Medical Societies. The program offers physicians frameworks, concepts, tools, and skills to support effective leadership across organizational contexts. The course continues to benefit from grant support from The Physicians Foundation.

The ACCMA was happy to welcome our 41 physician leaders in person again for the first and final sessions of the program. The remaining sessions were held online, all lead by our seasoned faculty. Participants represented 18 institutions from five Bay Area Medical Societies.

We look forward to building on our successes and meeting a new cohort of physicians and, of course, continuing the privilege of working with our faculty. For information on participating in the next cohort, contact Jennifer Mullins at jmullins@accma.org or the (510)-654-5383.

LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY DAY (continued from page 9) eye surgeries. This same bill, AB 2236 (Low) was vetoed by the Governor last year. No changes were made to it before it was re-introduced this year.

INCREASING MEDI-CAL RATES

The California Legislature has done a tremendous job expanding health care coverage in the state and fundamentally revamping Medi-Cal through CalAIM. Now we need to work on creating more access for Medi-Cal recipients to physicians. Medi-Cal’s base reimbursement rates paid to health care providers have not been raised since the 2000-2001 budget. In fact, due to budget deficits, California cut rates in 2008 and 2011, including reductions that continue to this day. To truly provide Health Care for All, we need to address the issues of rates, which often fail to cover even a fraction of the cost of providing care and make it difficult for providers to see Medi-Cal patients.

We would like to thank our East Bay legislators and attendees for making this Legislative Day a success. For any questions regarding any of these issues please contact Mr. David Lopez, ACCMA Director of Advocacy and Governance, at dlopez@ accma.org or (510) 654-5383.

THANK YOU, LEGISLATORS!

The ACCMA thanks the following legislators who met with ACCMA members on priority health care issues during 2023 Legislative Advocacy Day: Senators Nancy Skinner, Steve Glazer, and Aisha Wahab; and Assemblymembers Tim Grayson, Mia Bonta, Buffy Wicks, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Liz Ortega-Toro, and Alex Lee