Congress sent President Obama legislation that prevents a payroll tax increase, maintains unemployment benefits and extends Medicare physician payment rates until December 2012. The legislation is funded, in part, by requiring additional federal employee contributions to pension plans and a $5 billion cut to the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act’s $15 billion preventive care fund. The prevention fund has been a perpetual target for legislators looking to fund other priorities. AAFP and other physician groups issued a joint statement denouncing the latest of many short-term fixes to the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that sets Medicare payment rates and now carries a more than $300 billion price tag to fix. Physicians and their representatives urged legislators to pay for a permanent fix by using excess funds assigned to Overseas Contingency Operations that previously funded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US Supreme Court issued a decision today to send the Medi-Cal provider payment cut case back down to the Ninth Circuit Court. While this decision leaves the claim by provider and patient organizations’ unresolved, it continues the delay of the cuts implementation and may eventually lead to their rescission.

Background

California adopted a 10 percent cut in physician payment as part of the state budget in 2008. Provider and patient organizations, supported financially by CAFP, filed lawsuits in 2008 that temporarily halted the cuts. Those cases were appealed and heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled yesterday. A second 10 percent cut in physician fees was adopted as part of the state budget in 2011. Four lawsuits have been filed to stop those cuts. CAFP is financially supporting a lawsuit led by the California Medical Association charging that these cuts would drastically reduce patients’ access to care. In these latter cases, a federal court has issued preliminary injunctions blocking the cuts as the judge considers the merit of the lawsuits.

CAFP strongly opposes California’s efforts to reduce physician payment in the Medi-Cal program, because of the disastrous impact this would have on the health of the state’s most vulnerable patients. CAFP believes these reductions would cause physicians to discontinue participation in the Medi-Cal program. This decreased access to health care would result in sicker patients, who would delay seeking care until routine illnesses became unnecessary crises.

CAFP is grateful that the courts have so far denied California’s cuts to Medi-Cal provider payments and will continue to fight, in the courts and legislature, to protect family physicians and their patients. If you have any questions about today’s decision or the lawsuits generally, contact CAFP Director of Health Policy Leah Newkirk at 415-345-8667.

This year’s Congress of Delegates (March 3-4 at Sacramento’s Citizen Hotel) will feature legislative advocacy trainings, social media tutorials and much more. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D–Sacramento) is the headliner for the event. Senator Steinberg has been a stalwart champion of the Patient Centered Medical Home, CAFP’s top legislative priority.

If you are attending the Congress, be sure to stay through March 5 and join your family medicine colleagues for Legislative Day to meet with legislators and put our advocacy into action! See the three quick steps to setting up a meeting with your legislator here. If you have already set up an appointment, contact CAFP Assistant Director of Government Relations Adam Francis with the information.

ANY CAFP member may attend the Congress of Delegates, but ONLY Delegates and Alternates may vote on resolutions and election of CAFP officers.  Our social media and legislative training seminars are open to everyone, as is Legislative Day.

Make your hotel reservation at The Citizen Hotel online or call the hotel directly at 916-492-4460.  For questions, contact CAFP Executive Vice President Susan Hogeland, CAE. 

The March 1 deadline to register for the 64^th Annual Scientific Assembly for $119 is fast approaching!

This year’s ASA, scheduled April 21-22 at the Renaissance Esmeralda in Indians Wells, features a great lineup of your favorite faculty members speaking on topics important to your practice and patients. 

Three schedule changes have been made:

• TEAM: The Evolution of Anticoagulation Management will be held on April 21 from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.
• The Aging Physician, a lunch-and-learn session, will be on April 21 from 12:30 to 1:45 pm.
• REMS, Long Acting Opioids, the FDA and You, a lunch-and-learn session, will be on April 22 from 12:30 to 1:45 pm.

We're thrilled to add George Kent, MD to the April 22 lineup, discussing family physicians, HIV disease and new strategies for improved patient care.

We've also added a Health Information Technology workshop – free to all attendees– on April 22 from 2:45 to 4:30 pm with Richard Rowley, MD. Dr. Rowley will talk about high-tech/high-touch strategies for your practice.

Register for the ASA today! Don’t forget that the SAMS sessions are available for an additional fee. The hotel block is rapidly filling up; please make your reservations ASAP!

We'll see you in Indian Wells!

CAFP has produced the third edition of its highly popular “Strategies for Coding, Billing and Getting Paid Appropriately” monograph to assist family physicians with an essential component of your day‐to‐day existence: coding and billing for the services you provide.

Coding appropriately and accurately is essential regardless of practice setting or size.   Share the document, which includes an updated set of guidelines, with your billing staff today.

View the online monograph here.

The winter 2012 issue of California Family Physician magazine featured a useful article by Tipu Khan, MD on some must-have medical apps for your smartphone.

Some additional popular and newly-released iPhone/iPad apps designed to help you practice medicine more effectively were written up in a HEALTHeCAREERS article by Matthew O’Donnell.

You can check out the article by visiting the HEALTHeCAREERS website.

Two new online CME activities are now available on CAFP’s website.

A Team-Based Approach to T2D: Best Practices and Practical Strategies for Primary Healthcare Providers is an interactive, case- and text-based activity providing clinicians with evidence-based tools and techniques to implement best practices for the treatment of T2D, including appropriate use of available and emerging agents and, when necessary, implementation and intensification of insulin treatment.

Using short patient-physician videos, the program also demonstrates integration of a team-based approach to improving T2D management, especially in regard to glucose control and co-morbid conditions. 

Faculty is Chris Sadler, MA, PA-C, CDE of Diabetes and Endocrine Associates in La Jolla, CA and President of the American Society of Endocrine Physician Assistants. This CME is approved for 1 AAFP Prescribed credit through February 2013. Begin the lesson here. 

Optimizing Self-Management of Type-2 Diabetes: Using Motivational Interviewing to Facilitate Behavior Change is a question-and-answer, text-based expert interview with Boston University School of Medicine’s Suzanne Mitchell, MD, MS, an expert in physician-patient communication. Dr. Mitchell identifies and addresses patient barriers to optimal care in Type-2 Diabetes and suggests how to apply strategies for patient self-management and enhanced physician-patient communication through the practice of motivational interviewing and a team-based approach to care. Embedded patient-physician videos demonstrate key learning principles.  

This CME is approved for .75 AAFP Prescribed credit through February 2013. Begin the lesson here.  

The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), West Los Angeles Chapter is offering the $2,500 Chiyo M. Hattori scholarship to medical students (or those entering medical school) of Japanese-American descent. 

Eligibility criteria for the Hattori Scholarship include:
- Must be a current/entering medical student of an accredited US medical school
- Must reside or have resided in southern California within the past five years
- Must have at least 50 percent Japanese-American ancestry
- Must be an active Japanese American Citizens League member
*If applicant is not already a JACL member, he or she can join by registering here.

The deadline for submission is May 1, 2012. To register, or for more information, contact Marisa Tamaru.

Atlantic Health Partners (AHP) offers CAFP members the overall best purchasing terms for Sanofi’s Fluzone, Merck’s Afluria and MedImmune’s Flumist. 

AHP provides members with the lowest costs for the complete spectrum of vaccines.  Thousands of physicians nationwide have seen how Atlantic can improve the financial and operational practice performance of providing immunizations to your patients.

For more information on how you can gain access to these great discounts, contact Jeff or Cindy at 800-741-2044. 

Do you live in the Sacramento area? Want to make a difference in the life of a high school student or students interested in medicine? Want to ensure your kids will have access to a family doctor?  Interested in up to 20 CME credits?  Become a Future Faces of Family Medicine mentor!

Future Faces of Family Medicine (FFFM) is a mentorship program developed in partnership among the CAFP Foundation (CAFP-F), two family medicine residency programs (UC Davis and Sutter) and Sacramento High School to address primary care workforce issues. 

By targeting ambitious and motivated high school students, FFFM excites them about careers in primary care medicine and provides them with resources to pursue such careers.  In the process, family medicine residents work together to design and implement the curriculum, fostering a sense of collaboration and pride about family medicine and primary care among residents.

Mentors will be partnered with Sacramento High School students and can earn up to 20 CME credits while providing students with career guidance and support. Your student will have just completed a course run by enthusiastic family medicine residents from UC Davis and Sutter and will be knowledgeable in the basic foundations of family medicine. You will meet your student at the Mentor-Mentee Meet-and-Greet session on March 10. If you can’t make the meet-and-greet session, you can still sign up to be a mentor.

Over the course of the next year, we ask you to allow your mentee to shadow you in your office or clinic, exchange emails and provide encouragement. Just a few hours of your time over the course of a year can have a huge impact on the future of family medicine and your mentee.

For example, your mentorship could break down into the following schedule:

• Four half-days of office or clinic shadowing
• Two informal meetings
• Monthly correspondence over the course of a year

Your efforts may inspire more students to choose a career in primary care and help build the future primary care workforce! Give a few hours of your time and help a student in need of a mentor. If you are interested in becoming a mentor, please complete this brief online form.

For more information on this unique opportunity, please contact the CAFP Student and Resident Affairs Coordinator Cody Mitcheltree at 415-345-8667.

The Family Physicians Political Action Committee (FP-PAC) just celebrated its eighth anniversary.  It is a celebration made possible by family physicians willing to invest in strengthening California family medicine's advocacy efforts, and we cannot thank them enough.

To honor those who have risen to the challenge and made family medicine advocacy a priority, we have created a special page on our website to thank our most committed contributors. This new page honors the FP-PAC Donor of the Month. Curious to see who the first-ever FP-PAC Donor of the Month is? Click here to find out!