Posted on 05.24.10 by Executive Vice President Susan Hogeland, CAE 

The past week was a whirlwind of follow-up activities to the Board of Directors meeting and Annual Scientific Assembly, as we began the work of implementing Board actions and beginning the evaluation/debrief process on the 2010 meeting. Planning starts almost immediately on next year's conference as we determine through knowledge gap analysis what areas of curricula we should begin to develop.  We're always on the look-out for top speakers on key clinical topics, so if you have recommendations, please contact us at cafp@familydocs.org.  

All of the above was being done in the context of our deep concerns about the devastating budget revise issued by Governor Schwarzenegger on May 14. The budget revise confirmed the bad news about the failure to materialize of anticipated increases in state personal income tax receipts.  The Administration had already failed to secure hoped-for federal funds to offset budget shortfalls.   As a result, CAFP testified last Thursday against proposed cuts to health programs, including a whopping $750 million for In Home Health Services, as well as changes to the Medi-Cal program that will have a negative impact on access to care.  Some of these include reducing payment rates for physicians who administer drugs to their Medi-Cal patients by at least 12 percent, imposing co-pays, limiting the annual number of visits to physicians and clinics, and more.  If you have compelling stories aboutwhy such changes should not be permitted, please contact us at cafp@familydocs.org.

Inline with CAFP's efforts in Sacramento to enact legislation imposing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SB1210-Florez), the CAFP delegation to the AAFP will work with several other chapters to strengthen a resolution passed by our own Congress of Delegates calling on AAFP to rescind its Consumer Alliance contractwith The Coca Cola Company and to refrain from future relationships with organizations whose products do not support the good health of patients. A similar resolution submitted to the National Congress of Special Constituencies was defeated, indicating the need for some resolution content "tweaking."  CAFP will continue its efforts to reverse the Coke arrangement, and appreciates the testimony of Jeremy Fish, MD (Contra Costa)and Adam Francis, CAFP Legislative Assistant in support of the sugar tax bill last week.  AAFP announced its second Corporate Alliance relationship with Nature Made health supplements (Pharmavite) on May 14. 

In other follow-up to Board actions, Director of Health Policy Leah Newkirk is working with the chair and a member of CAFP's Medical Practice Affairs Committee to develop recommendations to member physicians in the Blue Shield network on responding to patient inquiries about the Physician Quality Recognition (PQR) program listings.  Blue Shield announced that it will launch PQR on June 1, 2010 so patients covered under its plans may view network physician listings on a set of eight California Physician Performance Initiative (CPPI) criteria.  CAFP and other physician organizations raised serious concerns about the accuracy of the data collected under CPPI, and we continue to work to improve those data.  Stay tuned for these recommendations, which should come out later this week in Academy inAction.

CAFP and the CAFP Foundation convened the 19th meeting of The California Endowment's Medical Leadership Council on Cultural Proficiency last year, again bringing together 37 medical organizations to learn about issues related to resolving disparities in health care.  Deputy Executive Vice President Shelly Rodrigues presented a retrospective on the accomplishments of the MLC, which was very gratifying and indicated how the MLC has helped move the needle on cultural, racial andethnic disparity awareness among physicians, health plans and facilities, andother providers.  MLC is now examining how it can assist The California Endowment with its community health improvement efforts as well as implementation of health care reform in California.

Senior Vice President for External Relations Cynthia Kear attends an important meeting concerning the Food and Drug Administration's Risk Evaluation and Mitigation program on long-acting opioids this week.  CAFP has been a leader in working to determine the impact of a long-acting opioids REMS on family physicians and their patients, undertaking a nine-state survey in collaboration with otherstate Academy chapters to evaluate attitudes and continuing professionaldevelopment needs. 

Finally, on Saturday, May 22, CAFP launched its first regional legislative and media training program in Los Angeles to supplement the trainings it does at the annual Congress of Delegates in Sacramento. Sixteen CAFP members attended the event, including six residents and CAFP media star and President Jack Chou, MD.  The program featured a professional media trainer and CAFP's own legislative advocate Tom Riley and legislative assistant Adam Francis, and focused on providing members with the fundamentals of identifying audiences, framing and messaging.  Depending on response to the event, CAFP may hold two additional regional trainings this year. Stay tuned.