President's Message
Andrew R. Waxler, MD, FACC
December 2019

Dear PaACC Members:

The last several weeks have been a busy but fairly successful time. Your PaACC Chapter has gotten a lot of good things accomplished, with hopefully many more on the way.
 
In the advocacy arena we’ve had a few wins as the chapter has:

• Successfully convinced Highmark to reverse/cancel their proposed new policy of required prior authorization for transthoracic echo.
• Assisted in passing Tobacco-21 which was signed into law just a few days ago; it will not only increase the minimum age to buy cigarettes to 21-years-old but also will establish 21 as the minimum age to buy e-cigarettes/vaping products.
• Given input on the Prior Authorization bill (PA HB 1194) just introduced in the House by Representative Steve Mentzer, with a companion Senate bill on the way...cautiously optimistic...
• Supported a new bill just introduced by Representative Barry Jozwiak, PA HB 2103, which will hopefully significantly change the awful Act 112; our goal is simply officially removing cardiac imaging from the law...fingers crossed. (Unfortunately, for now Act 112 still remains law and thus at this time we would advise you to continue to comply with this law requiring us to notify patients with any “significant” abnormality.)
• Became aware of a controversial bill, almost certainly soon to become law, named Peyton's Law, which will require high school student athletes to be given the option of an EKG. While on the surface this sounds okay, we are concerned about the “unintended consequences” of such a mandate and are working with the legislators to try to modify the language. Going forward, we hope to have legislation requiring better CPR training of high school coaches coupled with more AED’s.

• Continue to strengthen our relationship with the cardiology societies in Italy, and hopefully can establish some great collaboration projects.
• Work on developing a new relationship with the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Society of Thoracic Surgery, and are looking into the possibility of a joint CME meeting.
• Send the team from University of Pennsylvania to ACC.20 in Chicago to represent our state in the national Jeopardy tournament after winning our state tournament. Come cheer them on!
• Host a very successful CVTeam networking event outside of Philadelphia.
• Plan for an educational FIT/WIC (Women in Cardiology) program on radiation safety this Thursday, December 12 in Philadelphia; click here to sign up.
• Participate in the first annual Alfred Bove Memorial Lecture at Temple to celebrate and remember the great Fred Bove who was monumental in advancing both our state chapter as well as the ACC nationally.

There’s A LOT going on with YOUR state ACC chapter! This is just "the tip of the iceberg!" Please come get involved - the more the merrier! It is important that we all realize that we CAN indeed make a difference - as my wife likes to say - “many hands make light work”!

We will try to send you updates such as this every month, and continue to send you alerts as things happen. If you are on Twitter, you can follow these things in real time and I would suggest following @PaChapterACC, @arwaxler, @Cardiology, @KBerlacher.

I can be reached by email at president@pcacc.org.

Here's wishing you and your family/friends a wonderful and safe holiday season!!

Andy

Humans of Cardiology is an opportunity for PaACC members to share motivating stories about their personal and professional lives and was inspired by the wildly popular Humans of New York series. Submit your story and view past posts here.