Newsletters

POSTED: February 9th, 2018
POSTED IN: EPIC - The Official Newsletter of MOCEP, January/February 2018,

Mother Nature in Missouri has shown us what she is capable of with the weather so far this year, providing us with warmth one day and bitter cold the next, and always keeping us guessing what will be next. Unfortunately, Mother Nature isn’t the only one providing us with surprises, the insurance companies, Anthem in particular, are also surprising us with announcements that drastically impact your profession and patients. Hopefully MOCEP’s efforts at fighting back are surprising the insurance companies!

For more than six months, MOCEP has been working with many health associations, on a state and national level, to derail the denials by Anthem for patient visits to the ER that they deem to be non-emergent. MOCEP President, Jonathan Heidt, MD, MHA, FACEP, has been interviewed by numerous media outlets with more interviews sure to come; and Brian Bausano, MD, FACEP, was interviewed by a St. Louis radio station. We continue to see media requests come in, and will continue to push this issue until Anthem backs down.

One important piece we have not been able to provide the media are interviews with Missouri patients that have had their claims denied. Please help us find patients that are willing to share their story. A personal story has the highest impact on legislators, regulators, and the public. If you know of somebody, please reach out to myself or Dr. Heidt, and provide us with contact information, or ask the patient to please call us at 573-636-2144.

In addition to media interviews, we have legislation currently before the Missouri House and Senate to help us fix this issue in state statutes, Senate Bill 928 and House Bill 2225. We thank everybody that attended Advocacy Day and talked with their legislators about these bills and other high priority issues. Please contact your legislators and ask them to support these bills.

On to another topic MOCEP has been battling for several years…TCD CME. A couple years ago, MOCEP was able to get the oversight of the TCD CME requirements moved from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to the Missouri Board of Healing Arts (BOHA). BOHA was tasked with establishing new guidelines and have not done so yet. We have received several inquiries about this, and are happy to share that we have received the following communication from DHSS:

Based on section 190.241.9, RSMo, set forth below, the Department is not requiring ED physicians to have any education requirements specific to trauma, stroke and STEMI during our site reviews. 

9. The board of registration for the healing arts shall have sole authority to establish education requirements for physicians who practice in an emergency department of a facility designated as a trauma, STEMI, or stroke center by the department under this section.  The department shall deem such education requirements promulgated by the board of registration for the healing arts sufficient to meet the standards for designations under this section.

If you have any issues with this, please reach out to us and let us know.

Kind regards,

Sarah Luebbert, APR
Executive Director