Report on the 2010 ASPS Annual Meeting


By Jennifer Flannery, PA-C


APSPA cofounder and past president, Leah Kenney, PA-C attended the October 2010 American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Annual Meeting, held in Toronto in conjunction with the Canadian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Please read on to see how Physician Assistants are making their mark on this prestigious group.


Leah, with AAPA Strategic Plans in hand, found numerous opportunities for both the ASPS and AAPA to work with one another. She attended the ASPS Board of Directors meeting where she learned numerous facts.


First, a goal of the ASPS is to better represent the subspecialties within ASPS (such as Hand, Craniofacial, Microsurgery and Cosmetics, to name a few).


Next, the Health Policy Meeting, comprised of plastic surgeons whose job it is to write guidelines for their members, are striving to update certain guidelines through the use of evidence based medicine, thus getting out from under the guidelines set by insurance companies. As an example, the guidelines for the amount of tissue resected during a breast reduction currently reflects outdated and often under studied statistics. The Health Policy Group has identified some early studies which demonstrate improved symptomatology with even minimal tissue reduction. The group argues there is an increasing body of literature that clearly demonstrates advantages and would ultimately help surgeons to break away from insurance-

derived predetermined "schnerr scale", currently used to set tissue minimums. On this note, there is an internal committee developed by the ASPS members to improve their Evidenced Based Medicine approach. Their plan for now will be to review applicable studies, extract data and make official recommendations based on their review.


Did you know? The Young Plastic Surgeons (YPS) group was found to be a fantastic group of highly motivated members. Comprised of approximately 25 surgeons, one goal of this group is to donate a service project to a particular host city. Leah discovered that 100% of the membership funds are donated to the Plastic PAC (Political Action Committee), thus allowing them to donate to their chosen plastic surgery candidates.


On the final night of the program, Leah Kenney, PA-C and her supervising physician, Glen Brooks, MD, facilitated a round table discussion titled, "Using a PA in a Plastic Surgery Practice." Even though the event occurred on the final night of the program, over 50 attendees, including the President of ASPS, MDs, PAs, administrators, residents and fellows were in attendance! As Leah put it, "This was an especially large turnout given that the roundtable was the last session before the close of the meeting. One surgeon even changed his travel plans and gave up a direct flight home to be able to attend."


They provided an informed PowerPoint program which covered important topics like legal compliance (i.e. hiring a certified and licensed Physician Assistant), how to bill appropriately for a PA's services based on standard guidelines, and review of the AAPA payer database, including private payers. Following the PowerPoint, the panel entertained very intelligent and specific questions regarding reimbursement, supervisory roles, and questions specific to certain states.


The panel learned a few things as well. For example, it was brought to their attention by one surgeon that in California if a PA didn't have a Master’s degree then that person had to be treated as an hourly employee. Another surgeon from Florida had questions about supervision of PAs doing laser. It was also learned that several surgeons from New York and Massachusetts are struggling to get reimbursement for their PAs first assisting in surgery, particularly in complex cases, like microsurgery. Also, a point was made to distinguish between the PA and NP professions. The PAs in the audience, the medical directs and the surgeons dialogued amongst themselves about the similarities and differences, based upon their individual experiences, and the consensus seemed to favor the more surgically-oriented PA. Also, there were multiple residents inquiring about how to hire a PA as they enter their practices.


In summary, it was a very well-received roundtable. Participants not only found the information valuable, but Leah and Dr. Brooks found much encouragement about coming back next year, perhaps even as part of the general session. More information on this later!


For more details, please email Leah at: leahkenney@hotmail.com