From list at ptidaho.org Fri May 1 06:53:52 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 06:53:52 -0600 Subject: [List] I see double Message-ID: <9C32B340BCAF4BF3842B179F4724A56F@WXP2VWD691> Jill, You have my email address down twice. I realize that is better than none, but try to delete only one. Thanks, :) Jay T Ellis PT, DPT, CSCS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090501/387aee7c/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Fri May 1 10:28:08 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 10:28:08 -0600 Subject: [List] FW: Support Direct Access! Senate Companion Legislation Introduced!! Message-ID: Please spread the word and get everyone to write in. It is our best chance in years to get Medicare Direct Access passed. IPTA members will be in Washington, DC later this month to lobby on our behalf for these issues. Let's get the ball rolling today! Please also get non-members to write as these issues affect ALL PT's/PTA's in Idaho Thanks. Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. thowell at fiberpipe.net This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. _____ From: Monica Billger [mailto:monicabillger at apta.org] Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 10:17 AM To: thowell at fiberpipe.net Subject: Support Direct Access! Senate Companion Legislation Introduced!! This alert contains both Senate contacts Dear Advocate: On April 30th Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Arlen Specter (D-PA) introduced Senate companion legislation (S.950), the Medicare Patient Access to Physical Therapists Act. The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) strongly supports this legislation as it would allow Medicare beneficiaries to directly access physical therapists for outpatient services as authorized by state law. Congressmen Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) re-introduced the House version, HR 1829, on March 31, 2009. Currently, HR 1829 has 61 cosponsors. APTA needs you to contact your Senator or Representative TODAY to sustain momentum on this issue!!! The Medicare Patient Access to Physical Therapist Act (HR 1829/ S. 950) recognizes the ability of licensed physical therapists to evaluate and treat beneficiaries requiring outpatient physical therapy services under Part B of the Medicare program without a physician referral or certification of the plan of care, if direct access is authorized by state law in the state in which the therapist practices. Requiring a referral is unnecessary and limits timely access to medically necessary physical therapists' services. APTA believes improving access to care for beneficiaries is critical as Congress looks to reform the Medicare program. Key Points to Make * Access: The major objective of this access is to improve access to physical therapists under Medicare. Currently, patients are required to see a physician prior to the initiation of physical therapist treatment, causing delay and at times denial of needed rehabilitation care provided by physical therapists. * State Rights: This legislation eliminates a Medicare regulation that exceeds the state standard regarding access to physical therapists. State licensure laws govern health care professionals and Medicare should not limit access to safe, qualified providers with more burdensome requirements than state law. * Cost-Effectiveness: This legislation has the potential to decrease costs by eliminating unnecessary physician visit for the sole purpose of obtaining a referral, provide more timely access to care and reduce the number of visits or duration of care needed to treat an individual. * Choice: Currently, Medicare beneficiaries are limited in their ability to choose physical therapy as a treatment option. This leads to limited choices in health care and the potential for greater costs. * Safety: This legislation would not jeopardize patient safety. In the 48 states with direct access to PT evaluation and the 44 with direct access to PT evaluation and treatment, there has been no increase in claims to liability carriers or state boards regulating physical therapy when the referral mandate was eliminated. What You Can Do Contact your Senator or Representative to request his/her support through co-sponsorship of the Medicare Patient Access to Physical Therapist Act (HR 1829/ S. 950) or to thank him/her for their support if they are currently a cosponsor. ** To see if your Representative is already a cosponsor of HR 1829 visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ and type in bill number HR 1829 under "Search Bill Summary and Status." CALL YOUR SENATORS: Contact Senator Mike Crapo at (202) 224-6142 and Senator James Risch at (202) 224-2752. Remember to ask to speak with the Health Legislative Assistant and ask your Senator to cosponsor S. 950. CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE: Contact Congressman Walt Minnick at (202) 225-6611. Remember to ask to speak with the Health Legislative Assistant and ask your Representative to cosponsor HR 1829. EMAIL/WRITE: Utilize APTA's Legislative Action Center to send an email to your Representative. If you have any questions or need additional information regarding HR 1829/S 950, contact Government Affairs at 1/800-999-2782, ext. 8533. Thanks for your help in getting the message through to Congress! Please do not forward this email. To receive this information in another format for forwarding purposes, contact Monica Billger at monicabillger at apta.org. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090501/ff513dfc/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Mon May 4 11:19:38 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 11:19:38 -0600 Subject: [List] Continuing the call to action Message-ID: <04DA6191459541FEA2AF0525C63CA723@THOWELL> Hi everyone, Just a reminder that tomorrow at 10am EST, the Senate Finance Committee will convene the second of three planned roundtable discussions on health care reform. Tomorrow's topic is "Expanding Health Care coverage". I, hopefully, will have the time tomorrow to follow the proceedings and if I am able to watch, I plan to give updates on Twitter (@tomhowellpt) for those that would like to follow. Following the meeting, I plan to send another email to my Senator in regards to healthcare reform (Senator Crapo). I encourage everyone to write into their Senators and Representatives and to spread the word for others to write in to, therapists and patients alike. We need the grassroots support now to let Congress know how important physical therapy is to health care reform. Thanks! Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell at fiberpipe.net This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090504/210dbdc1/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Wed May 6 13:08:39 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 13:08:39 -0600 Subject: [List] Senate Finance Committee roundtable meeting Message-ID: <2E90B1F5C4BA4833A8FF6FFAF65A2B5A@THOWELL> Hi everyone, I did have the opportunity to watch the second Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on HealthCare Reform yesterday. Yesterday's topic was how to cover the under and uninsured. Unfortunately, there was a lot of talk about the problems and not a lot of solutions. It seemed to me that the insurance industry representatives were not very open to any change, so of course they were not jumping to make proposals. Nothing really new or exciting was discussed that hasn't been brought up before when discussing this topic except that there is a big push from the government to create a public health plan or as they called it a consumer-driven health plan. This would be like any private plan but put into the mix to stimulate competition. No-one has yet worked out how to do it and keep a level playing field but it was the topic most discussed. Instead of going into all the details, again, which have been discussed over and over (lack of competition, more preventative care, more community-based care, elimination of pre-existing conditions etc), I wanted to propose what I thought were the big opportunities for the physical therapy profession: 1) Preventative care: it was clear that preventative care incentives, like those being done at large corporations (smoking cessation, weight loss etc) may be proposed as a standard or mandatory part of all insurance plans. We have the opportunity to push for our role in preventative care and should. I hope that is part of the advocacy Forum agenda and if not should be. 2) Community -based care: It was clear that there will be a push to have more community-based versus institutional care. This is a tremendous opportunity for us as current leaders in the field. Working together with nurses we could maintain leadership in working with the government to improve this type of care setting. We also must work with the government on issues of education and work force to insure that there will be enough providers to handle any shift that occurs to more community-based care as part of the reform. Of course, those of us that are business owners will also be looking for reform to reduce the cost of our purchased healthcare insurance but the reforms mentioned were nothing new - pooling of businesses, more choice, etc. Finally, I again want to urge everyone to write their Congressmen and Congresswomen to support our issues and to educate them as to how we can make a huge impact to any reform proposed. WE MUST MAKE OUR VOICE HEARD. I personally, have written another letter to my Idaho senator, Senator Crapo, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee and who could make a big difference in whether our issues move forwards. Please join me in writing and keep writing as debate will move to the whole Congress in June! Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell at fiberpipe.net This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090506/da576d4f/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Fri May 8 22:30:54 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 22:30:54 -0600 Subject: [List] Final Senate Finance Committee Roundtable Message-ID: <73038B09DDA34C44BBBC88D60628A035@THOWELL> Hi Everyone, I wanted to update the list on the final Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on Healthcare Reform. I previous listed the wrong date. The date is Tuesday, May 12th, not Thursday May 14th as I had previously listed. As of now, I should be able to watch the meeting and will try to summarize it as I did with the previous meeting. Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell at fiberpipe.net This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090508/134ed6b3/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Tue May 12 07:24:34 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 07:24:34 -0600 Subject: [List] Senate Finance committee roundtable today Message-ID: Hi everyone, Just a reminder that the third Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on Healthcare Reform is today at 10am EST. I will be writing a summary as I did last time and updates on Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter @ tomhowellpt or search: #tomhowellpt for the tweets Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell at fiberpipe.net This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090512/837e915a/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Tue May 12 08:49:39 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 07:49:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [List] Final Senate Finance Committee Roundtable Message-ID: <125964.54868.qm@web34203.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Thanks Tom - look forward to your report. Larry Ohman, PT, OCS --- On Fri, 5/8/09, PTIdaho.org List wrote: From: PTIdaho.org List Subject: [List] Final Senate Finance Committee Roundtable To: hpa-list at yahoogroups.com, "IPTA list serve" Date: Friday, May 8, 2009, 9:30 PM Hi Everyone, ? I wanted to update the list on the final Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on Healthcare Reform. I previous listed the wrong date.? The date is Tuesday, May 12th, not Thursday May 14th as I had previously listed. As of now, I should be able to watch the meeting and will try to summarize it as I did with the previous meeting. ? Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell at fiberpipe.net ? ? This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient.? If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited.? If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. ? -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ List mailing list List at ptidaho.org http://lists.ptidaho.org/mailman/listinfo/list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090512/8753db28/attachment.html From list at ptidaho.org Tue May 12 12:10:41 2009 From: list at ptidaho.org (PTIdaho.org List) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 12:10:41 -0600 Subject: [List] Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on Healthcare Reform - How do we pay for it? Message-ID: Hi everyone, With the meeting concluded, I can summarize the discussion. As was the case with the first roundtable, there will be a list of recommendations coming out for the second two roundtables from the committee. Today's meeting was more productive, like the first roundtable with many good proposals. There were more than a few suggestions on where savings could be realized and money could be generated to fund reform: System changes: Change reimbursement to value-based, outcomes-based and emphasize evidence-based care - most all were in agreement on this. Use the system proposed in the stimulus plan for comparative-effectiveness research/committee Promote incentives for wellness Promote integrated systems of delivery of care Reduce end of life costs mainly through better information sharing and integration of care Better coordination of care via integrated health IT End the practice of large variations in cost of health care simply due to "practice patterns" Tax changes Change the individual health care deductions to a flat standard deduction Reform (but not eliminate) the employer tax exemptions Reform but not eliminate the exemptions for non-profit hospitals (mainly because there will be less charitable care as most gain insurance coverage) "Sin Taxes" to raise cash and promote healthier lifestyle (the evidence is mixed on how effective these are at raising cash and actually making people healthier) Industry changes Some reforms on pharmaceutical practices especially with generics Find a way to account for geographic variances in insurance costs, possibly by capping the cost Promote true market competition including through the development of a public health insurance plan There was a not a majority agreement from the panel whether some areas of reform should be moved on aggressively and some should be phased in to control the cost. There was much support for the Massachusetts plan which mandated coverage for all first and is now figuring out how to contain costs. It was pointed out that Massachusetts had funding to set up the initial phase of its reform so universal coverage could be mandated. It is yet to be seen if the Federal government can fund that kind of mandate quickly or not. They did also mention the offer made by healthcare industry trade groups yesterday, which made big news, to save 2 billion over 10 years. This was quickly dismissed by the Senators and the panel as empty promises that they have heard before. Senator Grassley even called it "fairy dust"! In my opinion, there was a confidence from this panel that costs could be contained and money could be found for reform. That was a good sign. There were also definite opportunities again for our profession to think about, especially for those who will be in Washington DC very soon at the Advocacy Forum. First of all, I think that we must continue to hammer home the point that our profession has been a leader in moving towards evidence-based medicine and cite all the ways that that is happening from the Guide to Physical Therapist Practice to the way our journals, website and education is based. Second is to hammer home the message that we have long been about values-based care and outcomes-oriented but that the reimbursement system has prevented us from establishing practice based on value. Third is a point made twice already: how we are positioned to be leader in helping people achieve better wellness and prevention. Finally I think there is opportunity for all of us at the state level to be involved in state efforts to use the stimulus money to create coordinated health IT systems at the state level. Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell at fiberpipe.net This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ptidaho.org/pipermail/list/attachments/20090512/f7e7f0fa/attachment.html