Council on Advocacy Update

By Wilford Gibson, MD, FAAOS

Wilford Gibson, MD, FAAOS

Many of you are familiar with the National Orthopaedic Leadership Conference (NOLC) held in D.C. by the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) each spring, but you may not be as familiar with the Council on Advocacy (COA) and Political Action Committee (PAC) Executive Committee meeting held the same week.
 
Briefly, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) is a 501(c)(3) organization that is a tax exempt non-profit organization with an education mission  which allows it to perform some political activities and to use Association funds to operate the PAC. The Council on Education is housed in the Academy 501(c)(3) and the COA is housed in the Association 501(c)(6). The AAOS PAC is a committee that reports to the COA. The only other Council is the Council on Research and Quality (CORQ) which is also housed in the Academy 501(c)(3). The Communications Cabinet is a Council level organization that serves all of the AAOS with liaisons to each Council, the Board of Councilors and Board of Specialties. Council and Cabinet Chairs attend the 16 member AAOS Board of Director (BOD) meetings but do not vote.

The Council on Advocacy establishes the Unified Advocacy Agenda and the Unified Regulatory Agenda which is set by the AAOS BOD. These advocacy agendas direct the activities of  the Office of Government Relations (OGR) staff and our PAC in compliance with our AAOS Strategic Plan which is the cornerstone of all AAOS activities.

Our 2016 Unified Advocacy Agenda Tier One issues include payment reform, medical liability reform, antitrust reform, clinical data registries and registry related issues, GME funding, ICD-10, improving the quality of musculoskeletal care and restriction on integrated services.

Our 2016 Unified Regulatory Agenda Tier One issues include payment, other financing, documentation, merit based incentive payment system, alternative payment models, devices, registries, GME, FDA advisory committees, FDA workshops and physician public reporting.
 
As you can see there are diverse, complex issues that we face on a daily basis.  From these guiding documents, several issues arise that become the “asks” during Capitol Hill visits during NOLC. This year there were four: H.R 4848 THE HEALTHY INPATIENT PROCEDURES ACT, H.R. 2513 THE PROTECTING ACCESS, COMPETITION AND EQUITY (PACE) ACT FOR PHYSICIAN OWNED HOSPITALS,  S. 2822/H.R. 5001 THE FLEXIBILITY IN ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD (EHR) REPORTING ACT and S. 689/H.R. 921 SPORTS MEDICINE LICENSURE CLARITY ACT.

The sports medicine act provides legal protection for traveling sports medicine professionals and allows them to practice in secondary states in support of their team and staff. The flexibility in EHR reporting act institutes a 90 day reporting period for the Meaningful Use program for the 2016 reporting year instead of the full 365 days, allowing time for providers to prepare for changes anticipated in 2017. The protecting access, competition and equity act allows physician owned hospitals to expand, suspending the ban on expansion placed by the Affordable Care Act. The healthy inpatient procedures act delays Comprehensive Joint Replacement (CJR) implementation until January 2018.