President's Message

may 2024

Dear PaACC Members,

We had a great turnout for our chapter reception in Atlanta. It was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with old colleagues and meet some new ones. We encourage you all to join us next year when ACC.25 heads to Chicago!

I want to give an update on numerous advocacy efforts the Chapter has been supporting. There has been movement on several bills in Harrisburg that we are closely following. See below for a brief overview and know that alerts will be coming asking you to contact lawmakers in the next few weeks. State lawmakers count on feedback as a part of their decision-making process. Your email or call supporting a bill is crucial to forwarding bills along. If you would like to be part of the PaACC Rapid Response team, a grassroots effort for advocacy, complete this form.

NONCOMPETE

As many of you have seen, the Federal Trade Commission voted earlier this week to ban all noncompete agreements. Unfortunately, this action has already caused lawsuits to be filed to block the action. Additionally, as many physicians are employed by “not for profit” entities, it is unclear how much this ruling will benefit those employees. It is felt that nothing short of a state level ban will be effective long term.

 

I am happy to report that last week the Pennsylvania State House passed House Bill 1633. This legislation prohibits employers from entering into noncompete covenants with healthcare providers that would prevent them from practicing healthcare in the Commonwealth after separating from their employer. The bill provides for exceptions, ability to recover certain expenses, and for patient notification requirements. Thank you to the more than 300 members of our Chapter who reached out to your Representative via our action alert, it definitely made a difference! The bill now heads to the state Senate for its consideration. We will be asking our members again to reach out to their Senators to support the bill when the time is right; stay tuned. There are now 12 states that have some form of a ban on non-competes for physicians, with Maryland recently passing their own partial ban. The continued political pressure is effecting change!

 

LICENSING OF MEDICAL IMAGING STAFF

We have been notified that a bill is about to be introduced in the State Senate that would require all medical imaging professionals to be licensed through the state. This would include all technologists that work in cardiology (cath lab, EP, echo, CT, MRI, etc). Our technologists already undergo extensive training and supervision through their educational programs and their existing hospital departments. It is the opinion of the Chapter and the national ACC that this added bureaucratic layer and cost will not improve patient safety (there are no documented episodes of patient harm in the state from a tech) and will likely worsen the workforce crisis our hospitals are experiencing by increasing barriers to join the profession and maintain certification. We will be asking you in the near future to reach out to your Senators to oppose this unnecessary legislation that will make it harder for us to care for our cardiology patients and will impose an undue burden on all of our great techs.

 

PATIENT TEST RESULTS

The PA House recently passed HB 1956, the Patient Test Results bill that looks to correct some of the problems with Act 112 that requires all imaging tests with abnormal findings to have a direct notice sent to the patient. We are awaiting a senate bill number to be assigned and will be advocating for passage of this important legislation.

 

MATERNAL MORTALITY

PaACC and Pa-ACOG Chapters petitioned for Medicaid to expand coverage to include blood pressure monitors for pregnant and postpartum enrollees following a study showing better medication adherence amongst other positive outcomes. This language was added to a series of eight bills that will address material mortality called MOMNIBUS.

 

TELEHEALTH

House Bill 1512 requires insurance companies to cover Telehealth services was passed by the House with bipartisan support and now goes to the Senate.  

 

The PA Chapter is fortunate in that we have many leaders who have spent a considerable amount of time advocating for our patients and cardiovascular care in Pennsylvania. We want to especially recognize Dr. Neerav Sheth, our current state Advocacy Chair; Dr. Andy Wexler, previous Eastern Governor and for years the leader of PaACC advocacy efforts and current member of the national ACC Health Affairs Committee; and Dr. Bill Van Decker, previous lead of PaACC Advocacy and the current Chair of the national ACC Health Affairs Committee. The hard work of these leaders and others has contributed significantly to the care we are able to offer our patients in Pennsylvania.

 

We continue to welcome feedback and are excited about growing and having more member get involved. Please check out our website at www.pcacc.org, follow us on X @PAChapterACC, and reach out any time via president@pcacc.org with questions, ideas, needs or if you would like to get involved in PaACC activities.

Ross Peterson, MD, MBA, FACC

President, PaACC

Governor, Western PA 

The Pennsylvania Chapter ACC supports the American College of Cardiology’s statement of support for the Ukrainian people; see this link for the full statement.