Each June, the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) House of Delegates Annual Meeting is held in Chicago, gathering representatives from various medical state and specialty societies to discuss and develop official policies of the AMA.
ACR Delegates Attend AMA House of Delegates Interim Meeting
The 2009 Interim Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates was held November 7–10, 2009, in Houston. AMA Delegate Gary Bryant, MD, and AMA Alternate Delegate Eileen Moynihan, MD, represented the ACR.
AMA House of Delegates Welcomes President Barack Obama
One cannot open a paper, turn on the television, listen to the radio, or surf the Internet without finding something about healthcare reform. This heated topic is at the center of the media and was the focus of the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) 2009 House of Delegates meeting in June, where President Barack Obama addressed the delegates of the largest physician’s organization in the United States.
Identity Theft: Red Flag Rules Take Effect
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has adopted a rule that requires creditors to institute programs to spot suspicious activity (commonly called “red flags”) that may signal identity theft, and the red flag rules take effect May 1, 2009. The FTC defines a creditor as any entity that regularly accepts deferred payment for goods and services.
November Is “Heal that Claim” Month
The ACR is joining with the American Medical Association (AMA) in promoting November as “Heal that Claim” month.
Aloha from the 2007 AMA House of Delegates Interim Meeting
The 2007 AMA House of Delegates interim meeting was held November 10–13 in Honolulu. The ACR was represented by its delegate, Melvin Britton, MD, and alternate delegate, Gary Bryant, MD.
Profiling Providers: Is Your Practice Ready?
Medicare may start profiling physicians as soon as mid 2008. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) develop a profiling system to identify physicians with inefficient practice patterns. At a House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health hearing, Herbert Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of the CMS, said that identifying inefficient physicians, or “profiling,” would involve comparing the number of tests ordered by a physician for certain types of patients with the number ordered by colleagues in cases with the same outcome.
ACR Unites with AMA to Correct SGR
Fair Medicare reimbursement is of great concern of physicians today. During the past few years, the SGR has called for damaging cuts to physician payments. Each year, however, Congress has placed a temporary fix on the scheduled cuts.