After receiving a letter from AAPA EVP/CEO Bill Leinweber, the American Medical Association issued a correction to an American Medical News article that contained innacurate information about PA scope-of-practice expansions.

From AAPA's monthly state government newsletter Legislative Watch:

American Medical News Gets it Wrong

The January 18th edition of American Medical News printed an article entitled, "Organized Medicine Pushes Back on Expansions of Scope of Practice."

The article included this information box:

"Nonphysician heath professionals continued to turn to state legislatures for scope-of-practice expansions in 2009. Below is a sampling of bills that passed.

Prescriptive authority/drug administration
By: Nurses, naturopaths, physician assistants, optometrists, pharmacists
States: Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma

Independent practice
By: Nurses, physician assistants
States: Hawaii, Illinois, Washington"

On January 19th AAPA EVP/CEO Bill Leinweber sent a letter to the AMA executive director noting the complete inaccuracy of the independent practice designation and the fact that the Illinois prescribing bill allows Schedule II prescribing by PAs only if delegated by a supervising physician. The bill had the support of the Illinois State Medical Association.
The offending language was removed from the AM News Web site on January 20th and a correction was posted on the 21st. The correction will also appear in the print version of AM News.

SCHIP Reauthorization

On Wednesday, January 14, the House of Representatives reauthorized the State Children's Health Insurance Program for four and a half years. The measure (HR 2) passed by a 150 vote margin. Today the Senate Finance Committee is marking up its version of the bill and passage is expected to occur quickly so that this can be one of the first pieces of legislation President-elect Barack Obama signs into law.

The bill, supported by AAPA, will cover 4 million additional children and adults, expanding SCHIP to cover 11 million people. Financing will come from a hike in the federal cigarette tax of 61 cents per pack. Sounds like a good time to start chewing Nicorette.

New VA Secretary

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee held a confirmation hearing yesterday to consider retired Army general Eric K. Shinseki for the post of VA Secretary. There's talk of funding the department for two years at a time, to help cut down on the long waits for treatment, personnel shortages, and other problems that occur when Congress fails to pass appropriations bills on time. The number of veterans is growing and it's fair to say that funding for the VA has not kept pace.

Health Care Reform

Community meetings on health care reform continue around the country. PAs in Arizona and Michigan joined some high level discussions and next Friday PAs in Connecticut will travel to East Hartford for their chance. Senator Christopher Dodd will talk about reforming health coverage before taking questions from the audience.

Economic Stimulus

Within two weeks the House will consider an economic stimulus package. An outline of the measure from the Appropriations Committee reveals that it contains $600 million to train primary care providers and boost the National Health Service Corps, $1 billion for community health centers, $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research on medical treatments, $3 billion to fight preventable chronic diseases, and $20 billion to jumpstart health information technology. Wasn't it the late Illinois senator Everett Dirksen who said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money"?

Nicole