November 15, 2006
Government Affairs
E-Update


Table of Contents

Contact Your Members Of Congress on Temporary Medicare Ambulance Relief

Submit Your Ambulance Cost Survey Today


HHS Issues Third Pandemic Influenza Update
forwarded from HHS

IOM Emergency Care Dissemination Workshops: Registration for Capstone Workshop in Washington, D.C. Now Open





 

Contact Your Members of Congress on Temporary Medicare Ambulance Relief

 

While Congress returned to our nation's capital this week, it was only to pass a continuing resolution through mid-December on federal funding as they continue to negotiate on the remaining appropriations bills. Congress will return again after the Thanksgiving Day holiday to address unfinished business including possibly a fix to the physician fee schedule and Medicare provider relief.

Please take advantage of this opportunity to meet or write, if you have not already done so, your Members of Congress on the temporary increase of 5% for 2007 and 2008. It is critical that Members of Congress hear from their ambulance service providers on the matter.

To write a letter using the AAA online letter writing tool, please go to: http://capwiz.com/the-aaa/home/ . You can also access the system through the AAA homepage at http://www.the-aaa.org/ and clicking on "Write Your Members of Congress". The system will fax the letters to your Members of Congress for you! It should only take a few minutes to complete.

Over 1,200 letters have been sent from ambulance service professionals to Members of Congress. However, if we are to raise the profile of this issue, we need every AAA member contact to send letters. Please also forward this e-mail your staff and ask that they also write letters. The more letters the better!

 

 

 

Submit Your Ambulance Cost Survey Today

On November 6, the AAA issued a Member Advisory announcing that it is expanding its ambulance cost study to now include all AAA members as part of its sample. This is a completely separate survey from the recent AAA member survey through Zoomerang. We therefore strongly encourage every AAA member to complete and submit a cost survey. The study is essential so that the Association will have data to compare to the results of the ambulance cost study being conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is expected to release the results of their study early next year. Please submit your survey by November 17.

The AAA contracted with Quantria Strategies, LLC to conduct the survey and only their representatives, John O'Hare and Judy Xanthopoulos, and our data analyst, Chris Hogan, will see the individual data. Participation is voluntary, of course, but responses from operations such as yours are critical if the survey is to accurately reflect the experiences across the range and diversity of all providers. Please therefore take the time to complete and submit a survey.

Any and all responses you provide to assist in this effort will be CONFIDENTIAL and not shared with the AAA leadership or staff, any private organization or government entity. Our data analyst will only report information in the aggregate.

To complete this survey, please follow these instructions:

•  Access the Internet website for the survey at www.ambulancecoststudy.com and click on "Survey" on the left hand side of the homepage;

•  You will be directed to the survey log-in and asked to provide a username and password. The login information is provided below;

Username: AAAMEMBER

Password: 10001

•  Download the survey, which is an Excel spreadsheet, on to your computer;

•  Compete the survey to the best of your ability; and,

•  Once it is completed; e-mail the survey to info@ambulancecoststudy.com no later than November 17, 2006.

For those AAA members who received a letter, e-mail or phone notification about being part of the random sample and have yet to submit a survey, please use the username and password contained in the e-mail or letter to access the survey.

We hope you will take the time to participate in this important project. With your help, we will be able to provide the Congress with information necessary to ensure that your organization is fairly and adequately compensated for providing critical, life-saving ambulance services to Medicare patients. If you have any questions, please e-mail John O'Hare or Judy Xanthopoulos at: info@ambulancecoststudy.com .

Thank you in advance for your participation.


. HHS Issues Third Pandemic Influenza Update

Forwarded from HHS

 

Secretary Mike Leavitt issued his third Pandemic Planning Update today, one year after the President unveiled a National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. This report brings you up-to-date on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services efforts to prepare the nation for the possibility of a pandemic. Along with a message from the Secretary, it presents our efforts in six categories:

  • Monitoring and Surveillance
  • Research
  • Vaccines and Vaccine Production Capacity
  • Antiviral Drugs
  • State and Local Preparedness; and
  • Communications.

The Pandemic Planning Update III can be found at www.pandemicflu.gov .



IOM Emergency Care Dissemination Workshops: Registration for Capstone Workshop in Washington, D.C. Now Open

 

During the past two months, the Strategic and Organizational Development Committee of the AAA has been working on a plan to utilize the IOM report on Emergency Services to assist us with meeting our goals and objective in the current strategic plan. The committee reviewed the report and identified statements that were congruent with AAA positions, statements that we currently have no position on but may be supportive of and lastly, statements which are incongruent with the current position. The committee then developed a series of action steps related to the items that support our current positions.

 

Below are the IOM recommendations and statements that are 100% congruent with AAA positions:

•  Medicare reimburses below cost

•  EMS must have parity in disaster preparedness with Police and Fire

•  Congress should increase funding for EMS disaster preparedness with a dedicated funding stream

•  In order to reduce the negative impact of ED overcrowding their must be measurable and enforceable standards that serve to reduce patient parking, ambulance diversion and in-patient boarding in ED's

•  Communications interoperability needs to include data as well as voice communications and serve to integrate EMS , public safety, hospitals, public health and emergency management

•  EMS systems must be accountable which corresponds to the central theme of the AAA publication Community Guide to Ensuring High-Performance Emergency Ambulance Service and the 5 Hallmarks

•  Financial incentives need to be aligned for field pronouncements for resuscitation patients-pay ALS 2 for full ACLS work-ups without transport

 

Action Steps include the following:

•  Use supportive quotes from IOM reports in AAA written materials and talking points

•  Ensure AAA get a representative on any of the panels, commissions and advisory groups that get established as a result of the recommendations, i.e.:

•  HHS/NHTSA-OEMS panel on developing evidence based categorization system for EMS , ED's, and trauma centers

•  NHTSA-OEMS panel on developing evidence-based model pre-hospital care protocols for the treatment, triage, and transport of patients

•  HHS panel to develop evidence-based indicators of emergency care system performance

•  CMS workgroup to look reimbursement for readiness costs and treat without transport
•  CMS working group to develop boarding and diversion standards as well as guidelines, measures, and incentives for implementation, monitoring, and enforcement of these standards

. Inform and provide education for members to participate and initiate grant requests as those opportunities become available originating from IOM initiatives

Lastly, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) will hold its final Future of Emergency Care Series workshop in Washington , D.C. on Monday, December 11th . The workshop will be held at The National Academies Building from 9 AM to 5 PM and will provide an opportunity to engage federal policy leaders in a discussion of emergency care issues. Registration is now open! Volunteer leaders and staff will be attending the remaining workshops; but we encourage AAA members to attend these meetings.

The workshop is free of charge but registration is required. Online registration and the preliminary meeting agenda can be accessed on our web site at www.iom.edu/emergencycare/workshops . An informational flyer is attached here - please feel free to pass this on to your colleagues.

We thank you for your continued interest and support and look forward to seeing you in Washington , D.C.

Note: Registration is still open for the November 2nd workshop in New Orleans . Visit the website for more information.

Institute of Medicine

500 5th Street, N.W., WS 720
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: (202) 334-3413
Fax: (202) 334-2862
emergencycare@nas.edu

_____________________________________________
This message was intended to be viewed in HTML. If you are unable to view HTML with your e-mail application, please visit (http://www.the-aaa.org/Publications/E-Update/11_15_06-GA.htm)

You are receiving this E-Update because you signed up to receive communications from AAA, to be removed reply to this email using the "reply" address.
American Ambulance Association - 8201 Greensboro Drive, Suite 300 - McLean, VA 22102

Copyright 2006, American Ambulance Association. No material can be reproduced or forwarded to individuals outside of your company without the express written permission of the publisher.