Update from MSV President: Behind the scenes

17 February 2012

Dear colleagues,

We reached the halfway point of the legislative session earlier this week. The General Assembly has acted on all of the bills. At this point, the list of bills MSV is monitoring has narrowed. Many bills that raised concerns for physicians or the practice of medicine have been tabled or defeated; others have been favorably amended thanks to suggested changes from the MSV lobbying team.

MSV is a trusted resource in legislators’ eyes. I have seen our lobby team interact with legislators first-hand during my days in Richmond. Legislators know that MSV will do what it can to improve bills when necessary. They know our lobbyists will be straightforward in telling a legislator when they’ve overcomplicated an issue or when a bill isn’t needed because another process is in place to address the issue.

Some examples of bills that MSV has been able to affect this session thanks to these strategies include:

• SB 320, introduced by Sen. Bill Carrico (R-40th, Grayson), would have required that any provider who prescribes a controlled substance (Schedule II, III or IV of the Drug Control Act) request and review information about that patient from the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP). Sen. Carrico requested that SB 320 be carried over for the year. Our lobby team explained the efforts by MSV, One Care of Southwest Virginia and and other stakeholder groups to provide substance abuse education to prescribers in 2011. MSV will continue to work on educational efforts to combat prescription drug abuse.
• HB 918 and SB 426, identical measures that would have affected physicians’ due process rights to appeal adverse rulings by DMAS during its Medicaid audit process. These bills were carried over. MSV will participate in a workgroup this year to propose meaningful changes in the audit process.
• HB 1207, which would have given higher education students the right to assert a conscientious objection to any requirement of an academic degree program. From MSV’s perspective, the bill raised concerns about allowing medical students opt-out of key components of their medical education. Del. Brenda Pogge (R-96th, Yorktown) opted not to pursue the measure after hearing from concerned groups like MSV and representatives of higher education.
• HB 937 and HB 938, which will help reduce the time that returning servicemen and women have to wait to become licensed to practice certain occupations in Virginia. MSV also worked with Department of Defense officials and the Virginia Department of Health Professions on the bill language to ensure that veteren physicians will still have the same requirements for licensure as all other physicians in Virginia.

Another issue in the forefront of the news this week has been the General Assembly's consideration of HB 1, the "personhood" bill, which asserts that life begins at conception and would include unborn children in the definition of "person" in the Virginia code. The bill, introduced by Del. Bob Marshall (R-13th, Manassas), has passed the House of Delegates. MSV does not normally take a position in support of or opposition to bills such as HB 1 or bills related to abortion or conception. Our members have divided opinions about this issue. Based on the requests for information about these bills we have received this week, I thought it important that MSV provide you with information about how to follow their progress. If you have strong opinions about these bills, I encourage you to contact your legislators directly. You may also want to check frequently on the committee schedule and attend the hearing of the bill in committee. As always, direct contact by a voter to a legislator is more effective than an endorsement by an organization. You can access the General Assembly's bill tracking web page here. MSV's grassroots action center, which you can use to look up your legislators and send a message to your delegate or senator, is available here.

MSV is grateful that so many legislators have been open to working with MSV to achieve positive changes to legislation and to be willing to consider non-legislative solutions to the concerns they were attempting to address. The positive working relationships we have with the members of the General Assembly pay dividends for our practices and patients.

Regards, 

Hugh M. Bryan III, M.D.
President