ACC Georgia Chapter

Gayle Davies

New Shared Decision Making requirements for ICD reimbursement

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Watch ACC/HRS Leaders Discuss New CMS ICD Policy and Shared Decision-Making Requirement. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a final policy decision updating the national coverage determination (NCD) governing implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation for Medicare fee-for-service patients.

The policy includes a requirement for a shared decision making encounter for four of the six covered indications for ICD implantation. Learn more about the policy and new requirement, including a case study of a shared decision-making tool used at the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, in a joint ACC and Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) webinar.

View the webinar here: ow.ly/eyH030iOotS

Call for Nominations for the Lifetime Achievement Award

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Nominations are now open for the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at our annual meeting at the Ritz Carlton Lodge at Lake Oconee, November 16-18, 2018.

This award honors an adult or pediatric cardiologist or cardiovascular surgeon that has made significant contributions to medicine through patient care, medical education, research or community service as a member of the Georgia Chapter of the American College of Cardiology, and whose lifetime of service deserves special recognition.

If you would like to nominate someone, please send your nomination directly to Donald Page, MD, FACC, Chair, Awards Committee, donald.page@wellstar.org, or by fax to 770.271.0634.

Please explain the basis for your nomination and why you think the person is worthy of this coveted award.

Our committee will then prioritize the nominees and present them to the Chapter’s Council for selection. The deadline for receipt of nominations for the award is April 4.

Don’t forget to save the date for our annual meeting.

2017 Annual Meeting Highlights

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The Ritz Carlton at Lake Oconee was filled to capacity for our Chapter’s Annual Meeting, held November 19-21. Over 500 attendees, including 150 cardiologists and 48 exhibitors and sponsors, packed into the beautiful resort on yet another spectacular weekend.

Our program focused on four topics: Coronary Heart Disease, Heart Failure, Valvular Heart Disease and the Athlete’s Heart. Our program was structured with an opening Keynote presentation and then a moderated panel discussion that included audience participation. Evaluations scored very high from our members for this panel format.

After a strong program on Friday we held our Fellows Poster presentations, reception and dinner.
Dr. Shae Anderson, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, 1st place

Thanks to our sponsors for the poster presentations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACC President Mary “Minnow” Walsh kicked off the Saturday Program with an update from the national office. Our Program Directors’ panel discussion shared a local view of cardiology. The session on valvular heart disease and the Athlete’s Heart wrapped up Saturday’s program and then an afternoon on the lawn was enjoyed by members and their families.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday night we presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Jere Lutz. Congratulations Dr. Lutz! We also had a great speaker, Rorke Denver. He shared his leadership experience as a Navy Seal serving in the middle east. HOOYAH!

To close out the evening we shared dessert and cocktails. Thanks to Boston Scientific and Medtronic for supporting our Saturday evening.

We appreciate our corporate colleagues who supported our meeting:

Abbott Vascular
Abiomed
Acist Medical
Actelion Pharmaceuticals
Aegerion Pharmaceuticals
Ambry Genetics
Amgen Cardiovascular
Astellas Pharmaceuticals
Astra Zeneca Pharmaceuticals
AtriCure, Inc.
BioTel
Biotronik
Boehringer Ingelheim
Boston Scientific
Bristol Myers Squibb
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta/
Sibley Heart Center
Cleveland Heartlab
Cryolife
Edwards Lifesciences
Emory Healthcare
Gilead
Grady Hospital
Janssen Pharmaceuticals		 Lifewatch
Lilanova
LundBeck
MAG Mutual
Medicus IT
Medtronic
NE Georgia Heart Center
Northside Hospital
Novartis Pharmaceuticals
Osprey Medical
Pfizer Pharmaceutical
Philips Healthcare
Piedmont Heart Institute
Piedmont Healthcare
Portola
Regeneron
Sanofi
Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
Spectranetics
St. Jude’s
Vascular Solutions
Wellstar Cardiac Network
Zoll Cardiac Management
Zywie

For more great photos from our meeting, click here.

TAVR Decision Aid Tools Now Available

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The ACC’s CardioSmart Decision Aids hub recently expanded to include two new TAVR Decision Aid Tools that help patients understand what aortic stenosis (AS) is and what treatments are available. The first tool guides patients with intermediate or high surgical risk through the treatment options available for severe AS and helps them choose between TAVR and surgery. The second tool is dedicated to patients with prohibitive surgical risk/inoperable to help them evaluate the proper treatment and choose between TAVR and symptoms management. Visit CardioSmart.org/Decisions to find out more and download these tools for free.

Help Solve Prior Authorization Challenges

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November is here and that means it’s time to submit your prior authorization data via ACC’s web-based prior authorization tool (PARTool). Do your PART to improve the prior authorization process by recording incorrectly denied or difficult requests through ACC’s PARTool for the entire month. The data collected helps the College determine overall prior authorization and test substitution trends and better understand problematic areas of the process including time burdens, test substitution and peer-to-peer reviews. The observed trends will be shared with insurers, vendors, state legislators and insurance officials to engage them in ACC’s efforts to reduce the burden of prior authorization and return attention to direct patient interaction. Practices can submit through a simple online form at ACC.org/PARTool.

To be successful on a larger scale to solve prior authorization challenges – we must all work together to find a solution that ultimately saves time, saves money, and—most importantly—saves lives. So please help and do your PART!

Meet Your Leadership Team

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The following will serve our Chapter beginning January 1, 2018 (those in bold were elected this year):

 

President:  Charles Brown, MD FACC
Governor-Elect:   Jeff Marshall, MD, FACC
Secretary-Treasurer:  Arthur Reitman, MD, FACC
Councilors:
  • Marcus Brown, MD, FACC
  • Robert Campbell, MD, FACC
  • Cyrus Samai, MD, FACC
  • Gina Lundberg, MD, FACC
  • Joseph Miller, MD, FACC
  • Jennifer Yeh, MD, FACC
  • Mark Watkins, MD, FACC
  • Joseph Poku, MD, FACC
  • Prad Tummala, MD, FACC
  • Charles Jackson, MD, FACC
  • Barry Mangel, MD, FACC
  • Gordon Borgat, MD, FACC
  • Pascha Schafer, MD, FACC
  • Matthew Crim, MD
  • Tanveer Rab, MD, FACC
  • Vincent Robinson, MD, FACC
  • Andrew Kobylivker, MD, FACC
  • William Crosland, MD (FIT)
  • Abdullah Omar, MD (FIT)
  • Emily Taylor, ANP-BC (CVT Member)