The Election Is Over. What Shall We Do Now?

MESSAGE FROM YOUR PRESIDENT:

The Election Is Over. What Shall We Do Now?

The two year long presidential election session is over. Before our President - Elect can get down to business the political pundits are already preparing for the 2012 presidential elections. Furthermore, those who are unhappy with the outcome of the election are vowing to “resist” any changes to be promised by the new administration. During the recent Interim Meeting of the American Medical Association in Orlando some attendees even went a step further. A current member of the United States House of Representatives called upon doctors to carry - hopefully in a figurative manner - a loaded shotgun to fight for their freedom. A former AMA President even dared to compare the status of doctors in the US to that of Jews in Nazi Germany!
This kind of hyperbolic rhetoric is not only unacceptable but also misses the mark!
I am confident that the majority of AMA delegates do not support these positions.
What we need are pragmatic solutions to the problems we are facing: stagnating reimbursement, increasing practice costs, third-party control of our practices and unnecessary regulatory burden.
This requires the ability to reach out to all parties involved in the healthcare delivery process, listen to arguments, tolerate other opinions and reach a compromise. Collaboration and not confrontation will help us to achieve our goals. As I said many times before: we need to sit at the table, otherwise we are going to be the menu item on the table.
Therefore, I will remain focused on assisting our members to continue practicing medicine. But I will also remind each of you that there is no way back to the “good old days of medicine.” The only constant in life is change! We have to adapt to the rapidly changing economic environment and find the best solutions that suit us.
Verbal radicalism and defiance will only lead us into a political dead end street.
Many of you are helping me to identify the problems and we try our best to resolve them. One of the issues pertains to the sluggish Medicare reimbursement for services rendered and the onerous prepayment chart review requirements.
Therefore, on 10/22/08 I traveled to Jacksonville and met with the CEO and President Mrs. Sandy Coston and the Vice Chairman Mr. Curtis Lord of FIRST COAST, the regional Medicare administrator. I also had the opportunity to meet and speak with all department heads including claims processing support, claims processing center, provider customers service, provider enrollment, program integrity and Medicare Education and Performance Solution. We discussed ONE single topic: how to improve the claims processing and reimbursement process. We agreed to ease the prepayment review process thereby reducing the chart review requirements. I will depend on your feedback to monitor the promised improvements. On the evening preceding my trip I received a call from a physician reporting that he has not received ANY Medicare reimbursement in the last 6 months and that ALL of his claims were rejected. I was able to resolve the problem within 24-hours and he will receive all payments due.
You need you to join our DCMA to support these and other projects, which help you to practice medicine and to provide quality care to your patients.
What are you waiting for? Join today!
Yours

Bernd Wollschlaeger,MD,FAAFP,FASAM
President, Dade County Medical Association