Again, the Arizona legislature failed to pass an important liability measure that would have limited the liability of physicians involved in emergency care. The vote was close, but Gov. Napolitano used her influence to defeat the bill.

In 2006, Arizona settled 214 claims for $60,822,250 (an average of $282,216). Surgery was involved in 78 (36%) of the cases. In California, during 2005, 1193 cases were settled for $242,239,400 (an average of $203,050). Just more factual data to show that liability limits do work. (Data from National Practitioner Data Bank)

The Bulletin of the ACS (DeGrotte & Hackensack, April 2007, pp 28 – 36) published an article concerning how to evaluate health plans.

The first step is to calculate the number of Medicare RVU’s for the most common procedures done in your practice. One then calculates the total amount paid (reimbursement) for the procedures. The total reimbursement/total RVU’s. This provides the amount of the conversion factor for your practice.

The total expenses for the practice are then divided by the total number of the RVU’s to give the conversion factor for the expenses. This is the cost of providing one RVU in your practice.

The RVU revenue is then subtracted from the RVU expense. This gives the RVU profit.

Once the Medicare RVU’s are determined, they can be compared to other health plans to determine whether one wants to continue with the plan.

This data may be used to determine what the desired RVU is needed to obtain desired income and adjust for increasing expense such as malpractice practice premiums.

The AZTrACC (Arizona Trauma & Acute Care Consortium) is holding a meeting on Tuesday, August 7, 2007 at the University of Arizona, Phoenix Campus, 550 E. Van Buren, Building 1, Rm. 2208.

Terry Loftus, MD, FACS, Director of Surgical Critical Care at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, will speak on “Trauma Triage: Then and Now.” 1.5 CME credits will be offered.

The Arizona Chapter is holding their annual meeting at the Resort Suites, Scottsdale, AZ on Nov. 3-4, 2007.

Leading our annual meeting this year is Kevin Foster, MD FACS, Medical Director of the Burn & Trauma Center at Maricopa Medical Center and Program Chairman for the General Surgery Residency Training Program. Dr Foster is bringing a wide variety of topics to our agenda with presenters from our own Chapter as well as nationally recognized speakers.

Highlights include:

• Grayson Wheatley, III, MD of the Arizona Heart Institute, speaks on vascular surgery;
  
• Orthopaedic surgeon and radio host on KKNT 960 AM Phoenix, Eric Novack, MD discusses key medical issues of the day;
  
• Howard Pitluk, MD FACS brings us up to date on Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG);
  
• Sandra Gladding, MD FACS talks about Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus;
  
• New developments and resident education status at the American Board of Surgery come from Richard Bell, Jr., MD; and
  
• An ACS Update from Paul Friedman, MD FACS, incoming Second Vice President of the American College of Surgeons tops off the program.

Plus, more to come!

For more information, contact Joni Bowers at: 602-246-8901 x104, fax: 602-288-5104,
or e-mail: jonib@azmedassn.org.

Photo Highlights From Our 2005 Annual Meeting: