This year's Practice Management Symposium was a tremendous success with larger-than-expected attendance and one of the best programs yet. Annual conference veterans said that this was the best they have seen in many years.  This could not have been accomplished without our outstanding faculty and presenters.  Thank you very much for donating your time to helping the practice of cardiology in the state of Illinois.  Also, a special thank you to Jack Lewin for his lively and informative presentation.  It was extremely valuable to hear his in sight into the future of cardiology. 

The Illinois Chapter of the ACC, The American Heart Association, Midwest Affiliate, and Region V of the U.S. Public Health Service are coordinating this state initiative to ensure that our citizens receive the best STEMI care regardless of where they are in Illinois. This meeting will provide the rationale behind developing regional delivery of care within the framework of challenges faced by rural and metropolitan areas.  It will also provide an in-depth look at successful systems delivering benchmark door-to-balloon times and will enable workgroups formed at this meeting to begin translating such models into statewide STEMI patient care. This will be facilitated through collaborative partnerships with key stakeholders to develop consistent lifesaving protocol and procedures statewide.  Please complete the registration brochure and fax it as instructed today.  Lastly, feel free to pass this information along to appropriate colleagues and staff members.

Ballots for the ILACC councilor elections have been e-mailed to all pertinent members through SurveyMonkey, an online surveying system.  Be sure to cast your vote by the election closure on Sunday, June 8.  As usual, we have many worthy candidates and unlike Florida and Michigan, your vote counts!  PLEASE VOTE TODAY!

The ACC has opened a 30-day all-member comment period on its Cardiovascular Recognition Program (CVRP), a practice-level recognition program designed to identify quality in cardiovascular practice. To ensure that the program accurately reflects the views of our members, the ACC is soliciting comments about the draft program through June 15. To view the draft and submit comments, click here. For an overview of the program, as featured in a CVN interview with ACC CEO Jack Lewin and ACC Vice President of Science and Quality Janet Wright, click here. For slides from the ACC's May 14 Webinar on the CVRP, click here.

This year's Medical Directors' Institute (MDI) will focus on physician efficiency and its application in physician rating.  During MDI, we will delve into how physicians are scored on efficiency and identify strengths and weaknesses in current approaches.

Ultimately, we are seeking to make clear recommendations for developing systems that help understand and address variations in practice.

In order to better understand the current variety of physician report cards and scoring, the ACC Payer Advocacy Department is requesting that you provide us with copies of your most recent efficiency report cards (deidentified) so we can develop case studies to further advocate for appropriate provider rating strategies.

If you have questions, please call Henry McCants at (202) 375-6642.

Please e-mail, fax, or mail copies of your de-identified report cards to: 

Mail:
Henry G. McCants
Senior Specialist, Payer Advocacy
American College of Cardiology
2400 N Street NW
Washington, DC 20037-1153
Fax: (202) 375-6847

E-mail: hmccants@acc.org

Please submit your recommendations to the Nominating Committee for the slate of Officers and Trustees for the ACC and ACCF, who will be elected at the Annual Business Meeting in March 2009 in Orlando. Officers and Trustees can serve in both organizations for the duration of their terms. Deadline for receipt of nominations is July 31.

Your recommendations are invited for the positions of Vice President, President-Elect and up to four ACC/ACCF Trustees. The Vice President will serve a one-year term and traditionally advances to the office of President-Elect. Each Trustee will serve a five-year term.

Please review the Guide for Submitting Nominations found on the Membership section of acc.org. The process for nominating a candidate, the job descriptions for Officers and Trustees, and the Conflict of Interest policy are included in this guide.

Dear Colleague:

As the July 1 deadline to stop the 10.6 percent cut in Medicare physician payment quickly approaches, we are again faced with an uncertain future. Three weeks out there is still no positive update and no guarantee that these cuts will be stopped at all, let alone for good.

Since 1992 when Congress passed a new formula to establish physician payments, cardiologists have faced a continued and unrelenting reduction in payments for Medicare services. These cuts, coupled with a regulatory environment that is increasingly changing the way procedures are paid and ever-escalating costs of maintaining an office, make it difficult to attract new cardiovascular specialists to the field, keep current ones in practice and even more importantly provide all patients with the quality care they need and deserve.
 
Which brings me to the reason for this letter: the ACC is doing all that it can at the legislative levels to represent the interests of the cardiovascular community. We have been at the table with other medical specialty societies these last few weeks as Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) works to finalize his Medicare Reform plan. We have also been working with Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to ensure the cardiovascular voice is heard as he crafts his own bill. The ACC continues to support both Baucus and Grassley in their efforts to stabilize physician payment for 18 months, while also helping ensure quality care for patients. 

As of this writing, you have an opportunity to help us in our efforts. Sen. Baucus’s bill is expected to go to the Senate floor next week. The legislation includes many positive elements for the cardiovascular community, including an 18 month Medicare payment update at .5 percent, an extension of the PQRI through 2011 and positive incentives for e-prescribing through 2013. On the imaging front, the bill does not include payment cuts to imaging services. It includes an accreditation requirement for advance modalities and would fund a two-year voluntary appropriateness criteria demonstration project supported by the ACC.  

It is critical that each and every ACC member call their Senators and urge them to support an 18-month positive update in physician payments, while opposing any cuts to physician services such as medical imaging.

We must be heard now. We must act together to convince Congress to stop the Medicare cuts and oppose any further cuts in medical imaging. It is critical that when talking to members of Congress or their staff that you provide them with real feedback on how the cuts and the current regulatory environment are impacting your practices and ultimately your ability to provide patients with the quality care they deserve. They need to understand the real, hard impacts that these continuous cuts are having not only on our patients, but on our staff and on us.

To take action, click here or call the ACC’s toll-free Grassroots Hotline at (800) 210-7193.

Sincerely, 
Doug Weaver, M.D., F.A.C.C.
ACC President

Best regards,

Diane Wallis, M.D., FACC
Governor, Illinois Chapter of the ACC