Councillor’s Corner

By John R. Corker, MD, YPS Councilor, and Benjamin Karfunkle, MD, YPS Alternate Councilor

The 2019 ACEP Council Meeting and Scientific Assembly are upon us! Before you enjoy the educational offerings at Scientific Assembly, come join us at Council Meeting to network, hone your craft and shape policy that will lead advocacy for our patients and profession. The Council Meeting is bright and early Oct. 25 and ends the next day, so make plans to arrive Oct. 24! There is an orientation for first time attendees at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24. Reach out if you would like more information.
 
As your official alternate councilor and councilor, Ben and I would like to recognize and welcome our three newest alternate councilors: Dr. Hilary Fairbrother (former YPS Councillor) from Texas, Dr. Jordan Warchol from Nebraska, and Dr. J. David Gatz from Maryland. These three very talented young emergency physicians will help us carry the banner for the YPS at this year’s ACEP Council Meeting, and we hope many of you will, too! If you would like to work with us during this council meeting, please contact us via email so we can get you up to speed.
 
The YPS will be supporting a variety of policy proposals, including but not limited to: A call for the creation of a Rural Emergency Medicine Advisory Board, supporting gender-neutral salaries and implicit bias training, and separating contract negotiations from payment for care provided. New proposals are coming in every day from around the country, and the full compendium of items of business will be made available on Sept. 25. 

In the meantime, here’s what’s happening in Washington and around the Country:

• ACEP recently responded in the strongest possible terms to a fundamentally biased and flawed study / editorial recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine on the topic of Out-Of-Network Billing. 
• Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently had the courage to sign a vital state budget bill while vetoing flawed and inadequate out-of-network billing language that state lawmakers had attached in strong-arm fashion. 
• With young EPs standing right behind him, Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed into law ACEP- and TCEP-supported legislation to crack down on predatory insurance practices leading to surprise medical bills for patients. Shout out to one of our own young EM physicians Theresa Tran, MD, MBA, who led the charge. 

Your ACEP Young Physicians’ Section is full of incredible people who are changing the face and future of emergency medicine. They got their start in deliberative bodies like our ACEP Council. If your interests lie in changing the parts of our job that are too big for one person to change alone, come meet us in Denver and bring your drive with you.