On the evening of Feb. 24, 2016, Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) physician and Alliance leaders joined a conference call with U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr., to get a health policy update and discuss critical health care issues.
More than 30 members of the PAMED Board of Trustees and the PAMPAC Board joined the call. They heard and update on MACRA implementation (including expansion of CHIP coverage), the effort to provide liability immunity for physicians providing volunteer care in federally qualified clinics, increasing the investment in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and concerns about the opioid crisis and abuse epidemic.
One of the issues highlighted during the Q&A portion of the call addressed concerns that current legislation ― S. 2511 the Improving Health Information Technology Act ― removes the penalties on EHR vendors for having a decertified product and eliminates the physician compensation fund for physicians who bought decertified EHRs and needed to buy new ones.
PAMED President Scott Shapiro, MD, hosted the call.
In his second term, Sen. Casey is the senior Senator from Pennsylvania. In addition to serving on the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee and Special Committee on Aging, his two other committee assignments ― the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ― are critical components in any health care policy debate at the national level.
The next Health Policy Update call will be scheduled for late spring.