FROM THE PRESIDENT Nancy Hutnak, DO President Oregon Medical Association nancneal@wildblue.net There are differences between us——— rural or urban, employed or independent, specialty or general practice——— but at OMA we join together on legislative issues that help us care for patients the best way possible. OMA Provides Solutions in Uncertain Times LAST SUMMER WAS A SCARY TIME for my Eastern Oregon community and many others throughout the state as the forest and range fires that consumed our homes and way of life left us feeling powerless. But we made it through; Oregonians are a resilient bunch. Just as the long-term effects of this fire season on Baker County aren’t yet known, the constant changes in both the business and practice of medicine also leave us in a state of confusion, uncertainty and fear. Whether the issues burn hot and long like the Sustainable Growth Rate, or slow and consistent like the discussion around immunization or patient access, much is at stake. We have much more to do. This issue of Medicine in Oregon covers the highlights of the 2015 Oregon Legislative Session. The OMA’s Government Relations work and the work of OMPAC are crucial to how we, as doctors and PAs, practice medicine. There are differences between us—rural or urban, employed or independent, specialty or general practice—but at OMA we join together on legislative issues that help us care for patients the best way possible. The Legislative Committee members and staff, as well as the physician legislators, worked tirelessly to achieve objectives of improving our practice of medicine. While some aspects of the session had mixed results, OMA had a successful session on behalf of its members. OMA’s bills for addressing abusive payment practices by some health insurers and the new timely grace period notification became law and gave us national attention. In particular, the Virtual Credit Card Transparency bill successfully addressed the problem caused because providers often unknowingly absorbed the transaction fee—often as much as 5 percent of the total reimbursement—credit card companies passed through when using the virtual credit card system. Oregon was the first state in the nation to pass a law requiring that insurance companies give providers the option to decide whether they want to accept virtual credit card payments. There has been interest in other states to replicate our success. Immunization didn’t go as far as many had hoped, but the OMA-proposed bill on School Immunization Rate Transparency did pass. I support the idea that public schools and daycares now will be required to post immunization rates, and I am disappointed the legislature didn’t go further in assuring children are immunized and thus putting many at risk of these devastating illnesses. Rural health workforce issues took an unanticipated turn. The Rural Health Tax Credit became a confusing tangle of new measures that determine the dollar amount of the yearly tax credit instead of a flat $5,000 per provider. OMA proposed a study to understand the effectiveness of rural health incentives, but the budget was significantly reduced in the last days of the session—we now fear the budget is inadequate to produce the study that the state needs to get an accurate and complete picture of the rural health incentive programs. These are both issues we are tackling head on during the interim and the next session. The OMA’s Government Relations team followed 513 bills in the 2015 session. The team published the 2015 Legislative Report 4 Medicine in O Oregon www.TheOMA.org
OMA Medicine in Oregon Fall 2015
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