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Senator Holly Mitchell to keynote 2018 NEPO Summit

Physicians for a Healthy California is thrilled to announce that California State Senator Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) is joining the 2018 Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations (NEPO) Summit as keynote speaker. Senator Mitchell is a strong advocate for children, passionate defender of women’s rights and the environment, and fighter for equity and justice. She is also the founder and chair of the Senate Select Committee on Women and Inequality. The 2018 NEPO Summit will be held September 13-15 in Pasadena. This year's theme, Building the Best You: Celebrating the Joy ...

Have you updated your My CMA profile yet?

The California Medical Association’s (CMA) new website is loaded with a suite of digital tools that will help you get the most from your membership. One exciting new feature is the My CMA dashboard. If you haven’t already, please login, update your profile, and chose your preferences and areas of interest. By doing so, we will be able to deliver custom content and personalized alerts to your My CMA dashboard based on your user preferences. On your My CMA dashboard, you will also be able to find all of your ...

CMA advocacy expected to reduce administrative burdens for Parkinson's registry

Effective July 1, 2018, licensed independent practitioners, including M.D.'s, D.O.'s, P.A.'s and N.P.'s who diagnose or treat Parkinson’s disease patients, are required to report cases of Parkinson’s disease to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) after first registering with CDPH through the designated gateway at https://hie.cdph.ca.gov. The data collected will measure the incidence and prevalence of Parkinson’s throughout California, providing more understanding to improve the lives of patients. The California Medical Association (CMA) and other stakeholders have worked closely with CDPH to reduce the administrative burden these reporting requirements ...

CMA/AMA responding to proposed Medicare payment rule

On July 12, 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the proposed 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and MACRA Quality Payment Program (QPP) rule. This is the first year that CMS is combining the Medicare fee schedule and QPP rules. There are a number of positive elements in the proposed rule. These include: New payments for physician services that are not part of a face to face office visit (virtual check-ins, remote consults of patient videos and photographs, and online consultations with other physicians) ...

Blue Shield CEO addresses California physicians on digital health efforts

Paul Markovich, president and CEO of Blue Shield California, on Friday addressed the California Medical Association’s (CMA) Board of Trustees, to discuss the payor’s initiatives to develop new health care technologies including sharable digital patient records and electronic claims among other initiatives. Markovich told the CMA trustees that Blue Shield was seeking to reduce administrative costs significantly over the next three years to help support investment in numerous digital efforts. Blue Shield and CMA announced in June a new, multi-year collaboration to develop and support a new health care model that ...

Medical staff prevails in legal battle over medical staff self-governance

A settlement has officially been reached in the case of the Tulare hospital embroiled in a bitter legal battle over the self-governance rights of its medical staff. The case stems from actions taken in 2016, when hospital administrators at Tulare Regional Medical Center (TRMC) terminated the entire medical staff and its duly elected officers. The hospital then adopted new medical staff bylaws in secret and without input from physicians at the hospital. The hospital dictated leadership and standards of medical care, seized control of the disciplinary process without legal or ...

Welcome to the Next Generation of CMA

The California Medical Association (CMA) is proud to launch the next generation of our brand and website – powerful recruitment and engagement tools to keep CMA at the forefront of an ever-changing health care landscape.  The website functionality, design and content strategy have been reimagined for easier, more intuitive navigation and loaded with a suite of digital tools that will help you get the most from your membership. Highlights of the new website include: One Login: Simplified joint CMA/county login process so you don’t have to keep track of multiple usernames ...

CMA's Health Law Library updated with 2018 content

CMA On-Call—the California Medical Association (CMA) online health law library—has been updated with 2018 content. One of CMA's most valuable member benefits, the health law library contains nearly 5,000 pages of up-to-date legal information on a variety of subjects of everyday importance to practicing physicians. The searchable online library contains all the information available in the California Physician's Legal Handbook (CPLH), an annual publication from CMA's Center for Legal Affairs. Recently updated documents of particular interest include: MACRA Overview (#7210) Billing Limitations and Private ...

CMA to address affordability of health care at annual meeting

The 147th Annual Session of the California Medical Association (CMA) House of Delegates (HOD) will tackle one major issue—addressing the cost of health care—when it convenes October 13-14, 2018, in Sacramento. CMA physician delegates meet annually to establish broad policy on current major issues that have been determined to be the most important issues affecting members, the association and the practice of medicine. Because this year’s topic is a large issue, it has been divided up into four categories. Addressing Utilization Through Improved Care Delivery ...

Leading health organizations announce filing of statewide soda tax measure for 2020

Today, a ballot measure to protect public health through a state soda tax was filed for the 2020 ballot by two of California’s leading health care provider organizations – the California Medical Association (CMA), representing 43,000 California physicians, and the California Dental Association (CDA), representing 27,000 California dentists. This announcement comes four days after the multi-billion-dollar soda industry held the state of California hostage with a dangerous ballot threat that jeopardized the fiscal outlook of local governments, forcing the state to pre-empt local authority and pass an unprecedented 12-year moratorium ...