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a breast reduction currently reflects outdated and often under studied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
Copyright 2011 by APSPA