West Virginia-ACC December 2009 Chapter Involvement Interested in serving on the WV-ACC Council? Let us know! Congratulations to our new Cardiac Care Associate Council: David Adkins Jennifer Westfall Beth Ann White Carletta Williams
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Attention practice managers! Join the ACC today. Learn more. Is your practice hiring? Post a positition on the WV-ACC Career Center. Why not include information about CardioSmart on your practice website? Learn how. Learn how. New! Practice Survival Toolkit The ACC has created a practice survival toolkit in response to the unjustified and unprecedented cuts to cardiology in the 2010 Physician Fee Schedule. The toolkit includes an expansive array of information and resources. View the Practice Survival Toolkit. Participate in the new PINNACLE Network™ This first-ever, registry-based cardiovascular network is designed to provide practices with the tools they need to promote practice innovations and achieve clinical excellence. Learn more.
President's Message The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 2010 Physician Fee Schedule rule issued in late October will have a devastating impact on cardiovascular practices. For millions of heart patients in America the results could be severe - loss of outpatient services, reduced access, higher fees for hospital imaging and longer waits. This is why heart patients and cardiovascular professionals are coming together NOW to fight the CMS cuts. (See the ACC Campaign for Patient Access.) What Is the ACC Doing? The ACC has been working tirelessly to turn the situation around. National ACC President Dr. Alfred Bove wrote a very important piece entitled An Arrow to the Heart -- please read it here. Virtual Fly-In On Monday, December 7 through Friday, December 11, American College of Cardiology members are invited to email, call and meet with their members of Congress. On Monday, the ACC will start with a Virtual Fly-In where members can contact their legislators via email or phone via our CardioAdvocacy Network (CAN) website -- www.acc.org/can. Go to Washington, DC In addition, ACC members are invited to come to Capitol Hill on either Tuesday, December 8, Wednesday, December 9 or Thursday, December 10. RSVP to grassroots@acc.org as soon as possible! If you cannot make it to Washington, D.C. and would like to meet with your member of Congress or their staff at home, contact grassroots@acc.org. Give to the ACC PAC It is critical that we each contribute to the ACC Political Action Committee (PAC). We all can agree that money talks, and now is the time for us to have our voices heard. Please give generously at https://www.accpacweb.org/ssl/ Please spread the word and let your other colleagues know! Sincerely, Steven L. McCormick, MD, FACC President
Annual Meeting a Success The West Virginia-ACC held its 4th Annual Meeting on Saturday, November 21, in Charleston. With talks addressing clinical and legislative topics along with a fellow-intraining poster competition, it was a tremendous conference. We were honored to have Representative Shelley Moore Capito and Senator Evan Jenkins join us for a dynamic interactive discussion on the politics of health care. A complete re-cap with presentations and photos is at http://www.accwv.org/16.html Congratulations to our fellow-in-training poster competition winners: 1st place - Dr. Mehrette Maru (who will represent the WV-ACC at ACC.10 in the nationwide FIT poster competition). 2nd place - Dr. Firas Mahasneh 3rd place - Dr. Aaron Kaibas
West Virginia-ACC 4th Annual Meeting
Special Thanks We recognize support from Vascular Solutions.
Contact Us 304-837-2223 FAX 404-795-9105 wvchapteracc@gmail.com www.accwv.org
New Nuclear Cardiology CPT® Codes The ACC, American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), and Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) sent letters to more than 35 health insurers to inform them of the new SPECT-MPI CPT codes that will become effective January 1. The letters, co-signed by the organizations' presidents, provide a coding crosswalk from 2009 to 2010 and express the importance of correctly loading the new CPT codes and updating the insurers' medical policies in a timely manner. The letters also ask for the health plans to maintain the reimbursement for SPECT-MPI at the 2009 fee schedule rates including payment for wall motion and ejection fraction. Sample Practice Letter The medical societies also drafted a sample letter template for practices to send to their top
Contact Us 304-837-2223 FAX 404-795-9105 wvchapteracc@gmail.com www.accwv.org
SPECT-MPI CPT codes that will become effective January 1. The letters, co-signed by the organizations' presidents, provide a coding crosswalk from 2009 to 2010 and express the importance of correctly loading the new CPT codes and updating the insurers' medical policies in a timely manner. The letters also ask for the health plans to maintain the reimbursement for SPECT-MPI at the 2009 fee schedule rates including payment for wall motion and ejection fraction. Sample Practice Letter The medical societies also drafted a sample letter template for practices to send to their top health plans. This letter again stresses the importance of implementing these new codes as soon as possible and also asks for a meeting between the practice and health plan to discuss the 2010 fee schedule. We encourage all members and practices to contact their health plans to discuss their 2010 reimbursement rates particularly for SPECT-MPI and echocardiography (93306) . The practice letter is located on the ACC Quality First website at: http://qualityfirst.acc.org/advocacy/Documents/Practice_Nuclear_CPT_Codes_Letter_.DOC.
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