Physicians Adopt Policies for Improving Health Care at MSSNY’s 202nd Annual HOD Meeting
Physicians from around the state gathered in Rye Brook the weekend of April 11-13 at the 202nd House of Delegates (HOD) meeting of the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) to formulate policy and to elect new officers.
Amongst the policies approved for action were the following:
• MSSNY should advocate for a change in NYS Education and Public Health Laws to allow peer review to be protected from discoverability in order to enhance the safety and quality of patient care. Furthermore, this effort should be pursued separately from medical liability lobbying efforts in order to improve timely acceptance by lawmakers.
• MSSNY should work to educate the public regarding the increasing threat to the healthcare delivery system caused by excessive health plan market share, profits and executive compensation.
• MSSNY should seek legislation/regulation to allow physicians to be paid by health insurers for referrals and prior authorizations, reflecting their costs in time and personnel.
• MSSNY should urge the AMA to aggressively pursue a previous resolution seeking legislation to eliminate the financial burden on physicians and other healthcare providers for providing interpretive services for patients who are hearing impaired or do not speak English.
• MSSNY should endorse the recommendations of MSSNY’s Task Force on Health System Reform, calling for universal access to healthcare coverage, and take actions at the 2009 HOD.
• MSSNY should oppose the sale of tobacco at any facility where health care is delivered or where prescriptions are filled.
• MSSNY should support efforts to delay implementation of the NYS Immunization Information System to allow time for physicians and staff to be trained and to obtain the necessary equipment to use the registry. Furthermore, MSSNY should continue to support procedures, such as faxing and surface mailing, that will ease the administrative burden of sending vaccination records to the NYS-DOH and advocate for adequate administrative fees from all payers.
• MSSNY should support legislative efforts to eliminate written informed consent for counseling and HIV testing.
• MSSNY should ask the AMA to seek federal legislation requiring all medications and self-care products to be clearly labeled as to country of origin and to have the parent companies held accountable for the safety of their products.
• The MSSNY website should provide in-depth, detailed factual data – including links to other sites – on medical liability and relevant issues.
• MSSNY should encourage the AMA to expand its efforts to obtain deferment of student loan repayment for post-medical graduate trainees. This should include expanding current eligibility guidelines for economic hardship to include all residents and fellows until they complete their training. MSSNY should also encourage the AMA to study alternative mechanisms for addressing these trainees’ financial needs.
Newly Elected Officers are:
Michael H. Rosenberg, MD, (West. County) - President;
David T. Hannan, MD (Wayne County) – President-Elect;
Leah S. McCormack, MD (Queens) – Vice President;
Edward C. Tanner, MD (Monroe) – Secretary;
Malcolm D. Reid, MD (New York) – Assistant Secretary;
Robert J. Hughes, MD (Saratoga) – Treasurer;
Paul A. Hamlin, MD (Nassau) – Assistant Treasurer;
Mark L. Fox, MD (Westchester) – Speaker of the House; Jerome C. Cohen, MD (Broome) – Vice Speaker of the House.
.jpg)
