In this edition:

• Make Way for ICD-10
• Sunshine Act Payments Data for 2014 Now Available
• CC-AACE's Alan Skipper Inaugurated as AENC President
• New MACRA Resource from NCMS
• NC: Medicaid Reform Update
• NC: BCBSNC to Cut Blue Medicare Payments by 2%
• NC: Apply Today for NCMS Leadership College
• SC: South Carolina APRN Bill Stopped
• Register Today! 2015 CC-AACE Annual Meeting, Aug. 28-30

Carolinas Chapter-AACE
2015 Annual Meeting

The Omni Grove Park Inn
Early-Bird Rates
End Aug. 1.

Make Way for ICD-10

Ready or not, here it comes. Although CMS recently announced contingency plans for the transition to ICD-10, including guidance that allows for flexibility in the claims auditing and quality reporting process during the transition, we are urging providers to do your part to prepare for ICD-10 by the October 1, 2015, compliance date. CMS recently released a new ICD-10 Quick Start Guide to help providers on their way to ICD-10 implementation. This guide outlines 5 steps health care professionals should take to prepare for ICD-10 by October 1 compliance date. You can complete parts of different steps at the same time if that works best for your practice.

• Download the ICD-10 Quick Start Guide.
• Find ICD-10 Information for endocrinologists on the AACE website.
• Free primers for clinical documentation, clinical scenarios, and other specialty-specific resources to help with implementation are available on the “Road to 10” website.

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Sunshine Act Payments Data for 2014 Now Available

The 11.4 million financial transactions reported to CMS as required by the Sunshine Act totaled a whopping $6 billion. The Open Payments data was published by CMS on June 30. This is the second year of Open Payments data that is now available online. The first year’s data, 2013, was published in September 2014. We encourage all physicians to review the site and to ensure the accuracy of payments associated with them. Visit the Open Payments site.

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CC-AACE's Alan Skipper Inaugurated as AENC President

CC-AACE Executive Director Alan Skipper, CAE was inaugurated as President of the Association Executives of North Carolina (AENC) on July 13. The organization provides professional development and networking opportunities to those in the association management profession, including CEOs and the staff of associations across North Carolina. AENC celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

Alan was honored as part of the AENC’s Awards Breakfast and Annual Business Session at the Durham Convention Center.

Congratulations, Alan!

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New MACRA Resource from NCMS

The NC Medical Society has developed a new resource for physicians going forward in the post-SGR world. The new webpage on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA, aka the SGR repeal legislation) is now up and running. This page explains what physicians need to know about quality reporting going forward. More information will be added as details are made available from CMS closer to implementation.

• Go to the NCMS’s MACRA webpage.
• AMA's MACRA Summary
• AMA's MACRA Implementation Timeline

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NC: Medicaid Reform Update

The next few weeks will be a critical period for Medicaid reform. This is when the great divide between the N.C. House and Senate’s proposed budgets and Medicaid reform plans will be whittled down by a conference committee comprised of House and Senate lawmakers. We need your help to remind legislators that the provider community is poised to improve the long-term health of North Carolinians and the state’s Medicaid budget woes. Will you commit a morning (up to the lunch hour) on any of the following dates for meetings with legislators in Raleigh?

• Tuesday, July 28
• Wednesday, July 29
• Thursday, July 30
• Tuesday, August 4
• Wednesday, August 5
• Thursday, August 6

Sign up to participate by email to Denna Suko, dsuko@ncmedsoc.org.

For a complete review of the Medicaid reform discussion, see the North Carolina Medical Society’s recent Medicaid Reform Update and this comparison table which outlines and compares major aspects of each Medicaid reform proposal and notes the NCMS’s position in each of the key areas.

Your support and participation can have a BIG impact on the future of health care in our state. Please check your schedule and let us know at your earliest convenience if you can participate in meetings with legislators in the coming weeks. Email dsuko@ncmedsoc.org.

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For a complete review of the Medicaid reform discussion, see the North Carolina Medical Society’s June 24 Medicaid Reform Update and this comparison table which outlines and compares major aspects of each Medicaid reform proposal and notes the NCMS’s position in each of these key areas.

Please check your schedule and let us know at your earliest convenience if you can participate in meetings with legislators in the coming weeks. Email dsuko@ncmedsoc.org.

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NC: BCBSNC to Cut Blue Medicare Payments by 2%

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) recently announced that a new round of Medicare payment cuts would be implemented on Aug. 1, 2015. According to a BCBSNC notice, “[We] have determined that this alignment is necessary for providing our members continued access to high quality health care at an affordable price.” A payment cut of 2 percent will be applied to all covered services in the BCBSNC Medicare Advantage (Blue Medicare) plan. Read the notice here.

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NC: Apply Today for NCMS Leadership College Class of 2016

The NCMS Leadership College Class of 2015 spent a day meeting with lawmakers and observing what goes on at the North Carolina General Assembly as part of White Coat Wednesday on June 3. The NCMS Leadership College Program builds and enhances physician and PA leadership skills. The program equips graduates to become effective leaders in their workplace as well as more influential in motivating and inspiring their peers to be leaders in their medical settings and communities.

Applications for the 2016 Leadership College class are being accepted now.
For more information, visit the NCMS website.

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SC: South Carolina APRN Stopped from Advancing in 2015 Session
Reprinted with permission from the South Carolina Medical Association

The 2015 legislative session of the South Carolina General Assembly ended in the first week of June, with legislators returning on June 16 for vetoes and budget. The South Carolina Medical Association worked hard to monitor several health care related bills in this session.

The most critical bill of the year was H. 3078 in which advanced practice nurses in South Carolina sought independent medical practice. The SCMA stood in firm opposition of this bill and introduced a compromise bill, H. 3508, during the session that identified the critical need for continued physician supervision of APRNs.

On May 5, a third hearing was held by a subcommittee of the Medical, Military and Municipal Affairs committee (3M) on APRN Bill H. 3078 and debate was again adjourned. This means that the bill failed to advance this year and that APRNs have not obtained independent practice. This is very positive news for the South Carolina physician community.

Although the issue could return next year, the SCMA feels cautiously optimistic that the issue has resolved itself. The reason for optimism is due to actions undertaken by the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR) to address some of the core issues brought up under the bill. LLR created a new “committee” to review provider applications for waivers of radius, ratio and delegated medical acts. The committee will be comprised of two members of the Board of Nursing and two members of the Board of Medical Examiners. This new committee will result in a more streamlined process to review waivers for an increase or change in radius, ratio and delegated medical acts. A process that previously took months, will now hopefully take weeks or even days.

Additionally, through the initiatives of the Governor’s Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Council there will probably be a comprehensive opioid prescription bill in 2016 that will most likely deal with Schedule II drugs for all prescribers in SC.

The SCMA would like to thank all of the physicians who have been involved this session and helped the SCMA prevent this bill from advancing further. Your testimonies, letters to the editor, calls to your legislators, and more, all contributed to our success during the 2015 session. THANK YOU.

For all other 2015 legislative updates, we encourage you to stay tuned to the Summer Edition of the Palmetto Physician that will be mailed out in July.

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Register Today!
2015 Carolinas Chapter-AACE Annual Meeting
Aug. 28-30 @ The Omni Grove Park Inn

Topics to be covered include:

• Pre-Diabetes (Leigh Perreault, MD, University of Colorado)
• Diabetes Update (Michael Carlson, MD, FACE, Frist Clinic, Nashville)
• Spectrum of Hypothyroidism: New Views about Significance and Therapy (Paul Ladenson, MD, Johns Hopkins Hospital)
• Not-So-Incidental Adrenal Nodule, and Ten Rules of Adrenal Steroidogenesis (James Findling, MD, Medical College of Wisconsin)
• Endocrinology Maintenance of Certification (Cacia Soares-Welch, MD, NE Georgia Diagnostics)
• Inpatient Diabetes (Tom O’Connell, MD, FACE, Novant Health)
• State of AACE (Sandra Weber, MD, FACE, Greenville Health System)
• CC-AACE Annual Business Meeting
• And more!

Registration

Download the Registration Brochure for complete program details and the registration form. Early-bird discounts end August 1. 

The Southern Regional AHEC designates this live activity for a maximum of 7.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)^TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Accommodations

Call the Omni Grove Park Inn at (800) 438-5800, reference CC-AACE to obtain the special rate of $239-$279, depending on view, plus resort fee and taxes, per night. Reservations must be made by July 28.

Questions? 
Contact CC-AACE at (919) 833-3836 or nlowe@ncmedsoc.org. 

Your participation and vendor support are critical to our annual meeting’s ongoing success. Here's what you can do to help:

• Share this save-the-date flyer with your endocrinology colleagues.
• Share the Exhibitor Prospectus with the product and service representatives that call on your practice.