ISMA 2019 Annual Convention

Delegates from the Monroe Owen County Medical Society (MOCMS) attended the 170th Indiana State Medical Association’s Convention House of Delegates in Noblesville, Indiana. Your physician colleagues attending were: Carrie Davis, Clark Brittain, Tashera Perry, R. Daniel Lodge-Rigal, Brett Huber and Jim Faris. Forty physician originated resolutions were presented, discussed and voted upon. The results included 34 resolutions adopted, or adopted as amended, 4 were referred to the Board of Trustees for action, 1 was referred to the Board of Trustees for study, and 1 was rescinded by its author. The results of each resolution are reviewable on the www.ismanet.org website.

A summary of the results of interest are as follows:

1. Those adopted included Drug pricing transparency (Resolution 19-22) seeks the ISMA to support legislation to stabilize an individual patient’s drug prices for each insurance plan year as well as to increase reporting of drug prices and how they are determined.
2. An important late arriving resolution (19-40) asks the ISMA to fully support state initiatives to reduce vaping, especially among Indiana’s youth. This followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory about an outbreak of severe pulmonary disease and deaths resulting from e-cigarette use (vaping) including 24 cases in Indiana and resulting in several deaths.
3. Truth and transparency in reporting Medical provider qualifications (19-07) asks the ISMA to support initiatives to provide clear, defined guidelines for truth and transparency in differentiating physician and non-physician practitioners and their roles in the health care arena.
4. The maintenance of the Doctor-Patient relationship was the subject of (19-17) and directs the ISMA to seek legislation to ensure that health systems and practices notify patients when their personal physician changes location or give the patient adequate information to find their physician upon the patient’s request. Further, it sought legislation that would require a departing physician’s approval of any communications the physician’s former health system or practice sends to patients.
5. Mental Health Parity (19-03 suggests that ISMA support legislation to mandate parity of coverage for mental illness and substance use disorders as well as increase state-level accountability and enforcement of the Mental health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.
6. Resolution (19-05) asks that ISMA support several exemptions to any future e-prescribing mandate at the state level.
7. Resolution 19-10 asks ISMA to encourage and support legislation to facilitate access to care in Indiana and to provide fee schedule parity for physicians who treat patients through Medicaid and Hoosier Healthwise plans to match Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) 2.0 commensurate with Medicare.
8. Resolution (19-18) wants ISMA to advocate for continuous lifelong learning educational standards for physicians and that until better evidence-based data is available, maintenance of certification should not be the sole criterion for hospital staff privileging and/or insurance reimbursement. Additionally, the resolution wants ISMA to support nationally determined board certification that is evidence-based and has sole focus on what is best for patient care.
9. Resolution (19-24) asks the ISMA seek continued expansion and additional funding from the Indiana General Assembly for graduate medical education as directed by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education given the increased number of medical graduates each year in Indiana.
10. Resolution (19-33) was developed to help prevent neonatal abstinence syndrome by having the ISMA encourage the Indiana State Department of Health to promote and support contraception services for all interested fertile women who are on chronic opioid therapy.
11. Resolution (19-35) concerned protecting seniors from Medicare Advantage Plans and asked the ISMA to have the state attorney general and/or insurance commissioner scrutinize insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage plans for accuracy in their advertisements and clarity of their presentation to seniors and their family members. Additionally, ask the AMA, AARP, insurance companies and other vested parties to develop simplified tools and guidelines on how to compare and contrast Medicare Advantage plans.
12. Your colleague, Dr. Clark Brittain, submitted a late resolution calling for the ISMA to join the American College of physicians (PCP), the Institute of medicine (IOM) and many other organizations, encouraging legislation to allow Indiana licensed physicians to legally recommend medical cannabis to patients suffering medical conditions where in their medical judgment, it is the best therapeutic option for the patient. Unfortunately, the lateness of the resolution was voted to not have enough urgency to be accepted for presentation to the House of Delegates during the current session of the House.

Save the date for the 171st Annual ISMA Convention and House of Delegates September 11-13, 2020 at the Embassy Suites in Noblesville, Indiana. Monroe Owen County Medical Society members are needed to complete our alternate delegate slots which are intended to help us have a full set of delegates at the convention. MOCMS, based on our membership of 342 active or retired physicians, is allowed eight (8) delegate slots to vote at the House of Delegates. Remember, that any ISMA member physician is eligible to draft a Resolution to be considered by the House of Delegates. A successful resolution affects ISMA policy as well as potentially AMA policy and could even result in changes in Indiana or national laws affecting our practices and our patients.