House of Delegates Tackles Society Policy Direction
The Pennsylvania Medical Society’s House of Delegates (HOD), the body that sets annual legislative and policy direction of the Society, met Oct. 20-21 in Hershey, Pa.
More than 240 voting delegates deliberated resolutions to set policy and elected trustees and officers during the two-day meeting. Voting delegates to the House consist of representatives from the county medical societies, specialty societies and the Society's special Membership sections.
The House of Delegates considered more than 50 resolutions on issues ranging from public health to reimbursement, along with more than a dozen in-depth reports on issues generated by last year’s House and studied by the Board over the course of the past year. The delegates accepted or referred 46 resolutions to the Board. Resolutions and reports can be referred to the board either for action or further study.
Watch for a complete listing of actions of the 2007 House of Delegates in the next few weeks.
Among the resolutions accepted by the delegates for action were recommendations that the Society:
- Work collaboratively to promote employer wellness programs
- Promote healthy living in ethnic communities
- Improve HIV testing laws
- Work with emergency physicians to develop an educational program for health care providers to address the problem of emergency department overcrowding
- Endorse Pennsylvania programs for the uninsured
- Support breastfeeding
- Support legislation to reimburse physicians for providing vaccines
- Encourage insurers to follow evidence-based guidelines for medically necessary mammoplasty
- Continue to proactively pursues appropriate reimbursement from Medical Assistance and commercial insurers
- Investigate insurers’ policies that fine physicians whose patients use out-of-network labs
- Study the impact of physician education versus nurse practitioner or physician assistant education on patient safety
Last Updated: 5/2/2008