
July 12, 2012
New in this Issue Meeting Program AAPM Committee Schedule Exhibit Guide 2012 AAPM Summer School - Medical Imaging Using Ionizing Radiation: Optimization of Dose and Image Quality - Online Evaluation System Available Call for Editor of Medical Physics Call for Editor of the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics Call for CAMPEP Nominations AAPM Reports Report of AAPM Task Group 181: The Selection, Use, Calibration, and Quality Assurance of Radionuclide Calibrators Used in Nuclear Medicine Full Report of Task Group 125 Radiography/Fluoroscopy Subcommittee, Imaging Physics Committee, Science Council: Functionality and operation of fluoroscopic automatic brightness control/automatic dose rate control logic in modern cardiovascular and interventional angiography systems Health Care Reform Affordable Care Act largely survives Supreme Court scutiny Medicare Insurance Execs Tell Finance SGR-Fix Shouls Drive Delivery Reform Meetings Calendar Chapter Meetings: September 2012 - October 2012 RSNA 2012: Registration and Housing Open for AAPM and RSNA Members	To submit articles for future e-News, please email 2012.enews@aapm.org Make a Tax deductible contribution to AAPM’s Education & Research Fund AAPM Website Updates ACR releases newest version of the ACR Appropriateness Criteria AAPM Newsletter - New Edition Now Available 2012 Proposed Dues Changes and Amendments to AAPM By-Laws Awards & Honors Committee - Call for Nominations
Career Services & Committee Classifieds Career Services Ads as of July 12, 2012 AAPM Committee Classifieds as of July 12, 2012
Health Care Reform Affordable Care Act largely survives Supreme Court scutiny The Supreme Court largely upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the mandate that individuals must purchase health insurance, calling the penalty a tax. The individual mandate was considered the most crucial part of the overall healthcare legislation because striking it down would have jeopardized the ability of insurers to comply with other, more popular elements of the law without drastically raising premiums. The court reviewed four questions: whether it was within Congress’s constitutional powers to impose the individual mandate to purchase health insurance; whether all or any additional parts of the law must be struck down if the mandate is rejected; whether an expansion of Medicaid was unduly coercive on the states; and whether all of those questions can even be reviewed before the mandate takes effect. The high court rejected the argument, advanced by the Obama administration, that the individual mandate was constitutional under the commerce clause of the Constitution. But Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan — in ruling that a penalty for refusing to buy health insurance amounts to a tax and thus is permitted. Even as the Supreme Court upheld the central component of the ACA, the court modified another key provision of the law regarding Medicaid expansion. The high court ruled that the expansion is constitutional so long as the federal government does not withhold all of states’ Medicaid funding for not complying with the expansion, though the court also said that states could lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the law’s Medicaid expansion requirements. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is set to fully take effect in 2014. Medicare Insurance Execs Tell Finance SGR-Fix Shouls Drive Delivery Reform Congress should use the reform of the Medicare physician pay formula to change the delivery of care, a group of commercial insurance executives told the Senate Finance Committee at a roundtable on June 14th on reforming the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. The witnesses did not give concrete recommendations for changing the SGR formula and discussed their views that Medicare should move away from a fee-for-service system. The SGR sets rates for individual doctors based on the actions of physicians nationally and as a result doctors have no incentive to be efficient, witnesses said. The witnesses said Medicare should pay doctors on the group level, and the performance of these groups would determine what they are paid, a description that fits accountable care organizations (ACOs) that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is already testing. Those delivery reforms should start with improving quality, lead to lowering cost and give doctors incentives to follow up with patients in their homes, the witnesses added. Patients often do not comply with their treatment regimens, they said. All the witnesses described in general terms an approach that would give doctors incentives to organize into groups of providers with whom they want to be on the same team. The insurance company gives those groups long-term benchmarks for quality and total cost of care, and when physicians meet those goals, they’re paid bonuses. This was the second roundtable the Senate Finance Committee has held on SGR. The first included testimony from former CMS administrators.
The AAPM E-News is a collection of news and information that affects the field of Medical Physics. To unsubscribe from this mailing, click here.

July 12, 2012

New in this Issue

2012 AAPM Summer School - Medical Imaging Using Ionizing Radiation: Optimization of Dose and Image Quality - Online Evaluation System Available

Call for Editor of Medical Physics

Call for Editor of the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics

Call for CAMPEP Nominations

AAPM Reports

Report of AAPM Task Group 181: The Selection, Use, Calibration, and Quality Assurance of Radionuclide Calibrators Used in Nuclear Medicine

Full Report of Task Group 125 Radiography/Fluoroscopy Subcommittee, Imaging Physics Committee, Science Council: Functionality and operation of fluoroscopic automatic brightness control/automatic dose rate control logic in modern cardiovascular and interventional angiography systems

Health Care Reform

Affordable Care Act largely survives Supreme Court scutiny

Medicare

Insurance Execs Tell Finance SGR-Fix Shouls Drive Delivery Reform

Meetings Calendar

Chapter Meetings: September 2012 - October 2012

RSNA 2012: Registration and Housing Open for AAPM and RSNA Members

To submit articles for future e-News, please email
2012.enews@aapm.org

Make a Tax deductible contribution to AAPM’s Education & Research Fund

AAPM Website Updates

ACR releases newest version of the ACR Appropriateness Criteria

AAPM Newsletter - New Edition Now Available

2012 Proposed Dues Changes and Amendments to AAPM By-Laws

Awards & Honors Committee - Call for Nominations

Career Services & Committee Classifieds

Career Services Ads as of July 12, 2012

AAPM Committee Classifieds as of July 12, 2012

Health Care Reform

Affordable Care Act largely survives Supreme Court scutiny

The Supreme Court largely upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the mandate that individuals must purchase health insurance, calling the penalty a tax. The individual mandate was considered the most crucial part of the overall healthcare legislation because striking it down would have jeopardized the ability of insurers to comply with other, more popular elements of the law without drastically raising premiums.

The court reviewed four questions: whether it was within Congress’s constitutional powers to impose the individual mandate to purchase health insurance; whether all or any additional parts of the law must be struck down if the mandate is rejected; whether an expansion of Medicaid was unduly coercive on the states; and whether all of those questions can even be reviewed before the mandate takes effect.

The high court rejected the argument, advanced by the Obama administration, that the individual mandate was constitutional under the commerce clause of the Constitution. But Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan — in ruling that a penalty for refusing to buy health insurance amounts to a tax and thus is permitted.

Even as the Supreme Court upheld the central component of the ACA, the court modified another key provision of the law regarding Medicaid expansion. The high court ruled that the expansion is constitutional so long as the federal government does not withhold all of states’ Medicaid funding for not complying with the expansion, though the court also said that states could lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the law’s Medicaid expansion requirements.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is set to fully take effect in 2014.

Medicare

Insurance Execs Tell Finance SGR-Fix Shouls Drive Delivery Reform

Congress should use the reform of the Medicare physician pay formula to change the delivery of care, a group of commercial insurance executives told the Senate Finance Committee at a roundtable on June 14th on reforming the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. The witnesses did not give concrete recommendations for changing the SGR formula and discussed their views that Medicare should move away from a fee-for-service system.

The SGR sets rates for individual doctors based on the actions of physicians nationally and as a result doctors have no incentive to be efficient, witnesses said. The witnesses said Medicare should pay doctors on the group level, and the performance of these groups would determine what they are paid, a description that fits accountable care organizations (ACOs) that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is already testing.

Those delivery reforms should start with improving quality, lead to lowering cost and give doctors incentives to follow up with patients in their homes, the witnesses added. Patients often do not comply with their treatment regimens, they said.

All the witnesses described in general terms an approach that would give doctors incentives to organize into groups of providers with whom they want to be on the same team. The insurance company gives those groups long-term benchmarks for quality and total cost of care, and when physicians meet those goals, they’re paid bonuses.

This was the second roundtable the Senate Finance Committee has held on SGR. The first included testimony from former CMS administrators.

The AAPM E-News is a collection of news and information that affects the field of Medical Physics. To unsubscribe from this mailing, click here.