Winter 2017
Pennsylvania Society of Anesthesiologists Newsletter
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
I Ask You To Be Prepared to Act As We Go Forward by Tom Witkowski, M.D. I want to update you on activities which affect us within Pennsylvania and within PSA. We had a very successful strategic planning meeting on November 4 which was led by ASA CEO Paul Pomerantz. Interested PSA members at all levels of practice from across the state shared ideas and experiences. The goals as a result of these conversations is to improve our activities in four areas: advocacy for our patients and for anesthesiology; communication with the PSA membership; provide educational opportunities for our members; and public education opportunities. Steps are already being taken in these areas to improve member experience and more will be done in the future. As an example of improved communication, the PSA website has been redesigned with the goal of improving its ease of use and information availability. This legislative cycle has generated a lot of activity on
many fronts. With regard to Pennsylvania’s drug monitoring program, there is ongoing work to limit the requirement for an anesthesiologist to query the database for every case. This is reasonable as an anesthesiologist practicing in an operating room is not positioned to provide any follow-up care or referral to a patient with an identified problem. There has already been a change to the program’s FAQs regarding anesthesiologists, but we will continue to work on a legislative change to clarify the issue further. Balance billing of out-of-
network patients remains a contentious issue at both the state and national levels. In Pennsylvania, both House Bill 1553 and Senate Bill 678 attempt to address this issue. I think all of us support the concept that patients with health insurance should have some protection from receiving unexpected medical bills that they are unable to pay. This problem exists, in part, because of insurance networks, which do not include all specialists and pose difficulties when determining who is in network with different plans. Many of the proposed solutions, as well as legislation passed by other states, have set rates which significantly disadvantage providers and benefit insurers. The devil is really in the details with this issue. PSA is currently working in a coalition with six other physician groups, negotiating with insurers to provide a framework which will both protect patients and allow fair payment to out-of-network continued on page 9
www.psanes.org Telephone (717) 558-7750 ext. 1596