Update from MSV president: On the road again
10 February 2012
Dear colleagues,
I’ve been on the road quite a bit since I began my tenure as MSV president in October—attending component and specialty medical society meetings across the state, representing MSV at meetings and conferences like last week’s Patient Safety Summit, and of course, thanking our White Coats on Call participants and meeting with legislators in Richmond. On Monday, I’ll be in Washington, D.C. to participate in the AMA’s national advocacy conference and meet with members of the Virginia congressional delegation to urge them once and for all to fix the Medicare sustainable growth rate formula (SGR).
You’re probably as tired as I am of the on-going brinksmanship over the last few years as we wait to see if Congress will avert huge cuts in our Medicare payments at the eleventh hour. In late December, Congress passed another short-term patch to avoid SGR cuts that will carry us through the end of February. Without congressional action by March 1, Medicare rates will be cut by over 27 percent.
My upcoming trip to D.C. is well timed. MSV Executive Vice President
Rufus Phillips and MSV Director of Government Affairs
Matt Mansell will accompany me to meetings with representatives from Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb and Rep. Eric Cantor’s offices. We’ll be armed with information provided by AMA on the specific impact SGR cuts would have on Virginia. Key messages we’ll share include:
- Repealing the SGR before the cost of the fix rises again is the fiscally responsible thing to do. We have to stop “growing” the problem.
- Patients’ access to care is at risk as physicians make difficult choices about whether to continue to see Medicare patients.
- 81,815 employees of medical practices, 1.1 million Medicare patients, and 759,075 Tricare patients in Virginia will be helped by legislation that averts these cuts.
While MSV focuses most of its advocacy resources on helping us at the state level, it isn’t ignoring what’s going on in the rest of the country that affects medicine. I don’t know what will happen to the SGR come March 1, but you should be assured that MSV is advocating for us on this important issue.
Regards,
Hugh M. Bryan III, M.D.
President