Meeting Highlights
CANS Board of Directors Meeting
1. Formal Call to Order
The following members were present: Board of Directors:
Drs. Abou-Samra,
Bonner,
Caton,Colohan,Edwards (President), Hunstock,
Johnson, Ott,
Page,Robbins,
Vanefsky; Consultants: Drs. Kusske, Lippe, Prolo, Smith ; other:
Dr. Edwin Amyes. The
minutes of the
Meeting were
approved.
2.
Medical Justice, Inc.
Newsletter editor Dr. Randall Smith has provided the CANS membership
with information about
Medical Justice, Inc., the firm that protects physicians from
frivolous lawsuits.
Future updates on litigated
cases will be requested.
3.
Townhall Meeting
Although there was little interest in the CANS townhall meeting at this
time, future meetings will be held regionally where appropriate. Meeting notices will be sent via the newsletter listing proposed topics
such as reimbursement, trauma coverage, malpractice, Workers’ Comp and
collective bargaining. Members who attend are welcome to stay on for the Board
of Directors meeting. The townhall meeting will be held next January in
conjunction with the Annual Meeting.
4.
Lobbyist
The Board voted to hire
5.
LA
The
number of neurosurgeons covering the 8 private practice hospitals in LA County
is down to 18 and the new county hospital with 625 beds will be ready in two
years. Indigent patient resources continue to diminish in the LA system which is
about to collapse. The Board
voted to pursue a state application for exemption from the Taft-Hartley law,
through the CMA, for trauma
coverage that would allow trauma surgeons and neurosurgeons to collectively
bargain for fees.
Dr.
Kusske currently serves on a CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
committee, the EMTALA
Technical Advisory Group (TAG), which is comprised of 19 physicians who are
charged with helping
CMS develop rules to protect individual rights while minimizing unnecessary
burdens on health care
providers. He is also the chair of
sub-committee about on-call services. The hospital association members of the TAG have recommended that CMS require physicians to take
ER call as a condition of participation
in Medicare. Dr. Kusske asked that
anyone contact him with their specific ideas or concerns about this proposal to present to his sub-committee which will then
present to the general committee where all
comments become public. The next meeting will be June 15 in
7. Membership
It was noted that the CANS is slowly losing members. Manpower shortage
remains
a big problem and not only in
neurosurgeons in the
ENT surgeons, spine surgeons, etc. A
good recruitment tool
will be
available
sometime next year when the California Medical Board
begins tracking specialty
designations on its website. This data should provide
a more
accurate count of the
number of neurosurgeons in
California
.
131
members have paid increased dues needed to hire the lobbyist. Dues continue to be collected and it is
9.
Annual Meetings
The
January 2005 Annual Meeting made a net profit of about $4400 despite the
decreased attendance. The
by Dr. Hunstock. Preliminary program plans for
will be held in
10.
NHIC CAC
Dr. Lippe
recently attended the Medicare CAC meeting and presented the draft
Local
Coverage
members who were in support of
the
“Neurosurgeons” as preferred referring
physicians. There are several
other items of
note from this meeting:
Medicare
Part A and Part B carriers will be combined over
the next 2
years and will be regionally based rather than locally. Dr. Barry Straube,
Chief Medical Officer
of Region
IX, has been temporarily promoted to Chief
Medical Officer of Medicare. Medicare
fraud remains a
huge issue, especially in
southern
11.
Other Meetings Requiring CANS’ Participation
Dr.
Robbins attended CMA’s Council on Legislation (COL) meeting in March
where he
was provided a
want issues to be heard at
capitol. Dr. Prolo attended both the CMA House of
Delegates meeting and the AMA meetings in March.
He prepared comprehensive
summaries
of both meetings which are on file in the CANS office.
12.
Emergency Services Proposal
Dr. E.
Amyes, former ex-officio CANS Board member, presented a proposal
about
establishing a national emergency care system modeled on the Emergency
Services in
requesting financing to conduct a study with the
Rand Corporation to collect
data about the present system.
This
data would then be presented to Congressman
Cox who is in charge of homeland security, the premise being that there cannot be
homeland
security without an emergency care system; and there cannot be an
emergency care system without
neurosurgeons. The Board voted to contact
the Kaiser Family Foundation to lend support for Dr. Amyes’ plan
pending a review
of the grant criteria.
13.
Next Board Meeting
The next
Board of Directors meeting will be held on
2005
in conjunction
wi
CANS
members may contact janinetash@sbcglobal.net
for full text of meeting minutes.