AAOS Now, January 2011
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AAOS members testify on antitrust issues
By Jamie A. Gregorian, Esq. Rep. Conyers keeps pledge made at BOC/BOS Fall Meeting “The fact that health insurers possess monopsony power—the ability to present physicians with ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ contracts—and that physicians are powerless in their negotiations with health plans should not be news to anyone,” said Peter J. Mandell, MD, chair of the Council on Advocacy, in his testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts and Competition Policy on Dec. 1, 2010.
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Penalties coming under PPACA, PQRI
Quality initiatives are moving from incentives to penalties The quality reporting movement has been gaining in strength and momentum for several years. Although quality reporting was initially voluntary and promoted solely through the use of incentive payments, more recent efforts to improve reporting of quality measures have also included penalties for nonreporting.
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Facing up to legal issues
What orthopaedic society executive directors need to know Is your local orthopaedic society properly structured to protect volunteers? Do board members understand their fiduciary responsibilities? Could educational and advocacy activities inadvertently result in legal problems? These questions and more were among those addressed during the 2010 AAOS-sponsored Executive Directors’ Institute, a training and networking program for the executive directors of state orthopaedic societies.
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Second Look—Advocacy
If you missed these Headline News Now items the first time around, AAOS Now gives you a second chance to review them. Headline News Now—the AAOS thrice-weekly, online update of news of interest to orthopaedic surgeons—brings you the latest on clinical, socioeconomic, and political issues, as well as important announcements from AAOS. Are private practices disappearing?
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Congress Delays SGR Cuts for a Full Year
In 2010, Congress voted to override cuts to Medicare payments to physicians five times. In 2011, doctors hope that Congress will only vote once—on a permanent fix to the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that has calculated continued reductions in physician payments since 2002.