GOVERNOR'S REPORT The Board of Governors (BOG) serves as the primary liaison between the Fellows and the Regents of the American College of Surgeons. The Governors representing Northern California are listed below and should be contacted regarding issues and concerns you wish to convey to the leadership of the ACS. Annually, the Governors are surveyed to determine the areas of greatest concern to the Fellows of the ACS. The results of this survey can be reviewed on the College's website (http://www.facs.org/about/governors/bogsurvey1004.html) as well as the response of the College to these concerns (http://www.facs.org/about/governors/bogresponse1004.html). Please refer to the latter website for detailed information regarding the Colleges activities in areas of concern to the Fellows. Under the leadership of Dr. Tom Russell, the College has been exceptionally effective in many of these areas. The two areas of greatest concern to the Governors this past year related to professional liability, malpractice, and tort reform and physician reimbursement. The College has continued efforts to pass federal and state medical liability reform this year. A College staff member, Christian Shalgian, continues to chair the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (http://www.hcla.org), a coalition of more than 75 organizations that support federal medical liability reform. As you know, liability reform has become a high priority goal of the current administration in Washington. We encourage you to contribute to The American College of Surgeons Professional Association (http://www.facs.org/acspa/index.html) to support this and other College legislative efforts. Only through concerted, sustained effort can we impact on the challenges confronting American medicine. The College as been very active in the area of physician reimbursement and changes in Medicare/Medicaid. The College's efforts have contributed to the congressional mandated 1.5% update, instead of the 3.3% reduction. This raised the Medicare fee schedule of the 2005 conversion factor to $37.8975. Additional details regarding the 2005 RVU's can be found on the website for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS, http://www.cms.hhs.gov/physicians/pfs/). The College has been active in many other areas of concern to the Governors including graduate medical education, trauma care and reimbursement, funding for education activities, competency measurement for the practicing surgeon, credentialing for new technology, hospital privileging, and assistants atsurgery. Please refer to the ACS BOG website for more detailed information (http://www.facs.org/about/governors/boardgv.html). At the annual meeting of the BOG in October 2004 considerable attention was directed to the topic of surgical volunteerism. The college has developed a program to assist surgeons in finding opportunities to participate in volunteerism (http://www.operationgivingback.facs.org). Under the leadership of Dr. Russell, the College has been active in many areas critical to our practice and the care of the surgical patient. We are fortunate to have Dr. Russell attending our Spring Meeting and we encourage you to attend this meeting to convey your concerns and suggestions to Dr. Russell directly. At anytime, please contact us, your Governors, and share your perspectives on the Colleges activities and your recommendations for how the College can improve the care of the surgical patient. It has been a privilege for all of us to serve as your representatives to the American College of Surgeons. Jeffrey E. Doty, MD, FACS Governors:
Maria D. Allo, M.D.
Jeffrey Doty, M.D.
James R. Macho, M.D.
Robert Mackersie, M.D.
Stephen J. Mathes, M.D.
David Wisner, M.D.
Kent T. Yamaguchi, M.D.
|