President's Message

november 2022

Dear PaACC Chapter Colleagues,

It has been an exciting few weeks for the PaACC and ACC advocacy teams and I wanted to use this message to highlight a few recent advocacy efforts/results on behalf of our patients, cardiologists, and cardiovascular team members:

• Prior authorization and step therapy reform is signed into PA state law! Act 146 of 2022, which aims to reduce prior authorization paperwork and administrative time, was signed into law by Governor Wolf last week. Thank you to all the PaACC members who helped advocate for this over many years, and particularly to Doctors Andy Waxler and Bill Van Decker who have championed this and much of our state advocacy work. 

This legislative victory highlights the importance of sustained attention to advocacy, particularly within our state – we need to continue to focus on important issues such as reforming Act 112 and your engagement is critical – email me (president@pcacc.org) to get involved.

• Proposed CMS cuts to ablation RVUs mitigated: In response to advocacy from the ACC, including numerous meetings PaACC held with PA members of Congress prior to and during the recent ACC Legislative Conference, CMS altered its earlier proposed cuts to ablation RVUs. CMS will now implement RVU valuations recommended by the AMA Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) that are higher than the earlier proposal for SVT, VT, and AF ablation. Notably, these values are still lower, overall, than the 2022 work RVUs, emphasizing the need to stay engaged in advocacy for the long-term

It is worth noting the above accomplishments happened largely due to engagement and grassroots efforts from our members but also in part via political action committee (PAC) donations from the ACC’s PAC, HeartPAC. It's never too late to get involved and/or make a donation to the HeartPAC - a non-partisan organization that focuses on the optimal delivery of care to patients by cardiologists and cardiovascular team members – click here to do so.

Finally - don’t forget to vote on Tuesday!

A reminder - as I have noted in my prior emails, PaACC is co-sponsoring the Mid-Atlantic Capital Cardiology Symposium, taking place in Washington, DC from November 19-20. The lineup for the conference is fantastic and includes the annual PaACC FIT Jeopardy competition, an FIT Forum, and a day full of interactive, educational CME/CNE programming for the entire cardiovascular team. I hope to see many of you there – click here for registration information!

Please continue to visit our website at www.pcacc.org, follow us on Twitter @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.

Srinath Adusumalli, MD, MSHP, MBMI, FACC

President, Pennsylvania Chapter ACC

Governor, Eastern PA 

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