Winter 2013: From the President Larry Slaughter, MD, FACEP

POSTED: September 6th, 2013
POSTED IN: Winter 2013,

Happy New Year and welcome to 2013. As they say, out with the old and in with the new and with the new legislative session starting that certainly seems true.

As many of you know, last summer the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the 2005 tort reform. In that decision the court voted to reverse the limits on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases. In short, the net effect of this is our malpractice insurance premiums will go up. With this decision there has been a call for a legislative response. Ideally we would see all EMTALA required care, i.e. most of what we in emergency medicine do, as protected from medical malpractice claims. Admittedly that’s a long shot – much like believing my teenage kids will clean their rooms without being reminded, cajoled, scolded and bribed. The Missouri College of Emergency Physicians will be in the middle of this representing your practice and patients. We will keep you updated as the process unfolds.

A second issue of importance to emergency medicine is the Governor’s proposal to expand Medicaid in the state. As providers of a significant amount of uncompensated care we in emergency medicine would certainly benefit from this expansion. I think it is also important to focus on the compensation we receive for the work we already do caring for the Medicaid population. The compensation for our E&M codes must improve. The Board has successfully lobbied for increases in the past but has found little support in the last couple of years as the state’s budget problems have made it impossible to ask for more for our work. As the economy and tax revenues improve, we should be able to make our case to improve our compensation. Yet another issue we’ll keep you appraised of as we go.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a story. In no way is this story trying to make light of mental illness or its burden on those who suffer from it. As ED Docs, you and I know that we provide a huge amount of the psychiatric care for those in need when the system fails them in this country. This comes from my partner Sam Simms. If you’ve never met Sam it is truly your loss. Sam is one of those extraordinary guys that makes emergency medicine look easy – even from the wheel chair he has been in since his MVA 10 years ago. Seems Sam was seeing a patient that was hearing voices and had attempted to commit suicide by cutting her wrist with a butter knife. And yes this is a true story. When asked what the voices were saying she replied, ‘GET A SHARPER KNIFE’.

As we go into the legislative session MoCEP will definitely take our sharp knife into the fray.

Respectfully,

Larry Slaughter, MD, FACEP
MoCEP President