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MPS Newsletter - October/November, 2011
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Greetings!
Greetings from MPS President Mary Roberts
The season of meetings has been upon us, including our highly successful Fall Meeting in Grand Rapids on September 30th. We owe a debt of gratitude to our Program Chairs, Jed Magen, DO, MS, and Oliver Cameron, MD, PhD, our wonderful panel of presenters, and of course, Wendell Simmons and Kathleen Gross, for an outstanding event. We could not have been more graciously hosted by Pine Rest staff and the Grand Rapids community during their exciting Art Prize weekend.
It was clear from program evaluation feedback that our attendees were intrigued by glimpses of what is possible in the form of integrated and innovative care as our healthcare landscape shifts. There was an interesting divide among respondents, between a focused interest in CME topics that would enhance their care delivery to individual patients in the office, and those who are eager to know more about population-driven care. This may prove to be a dilemma for all of us for some time to come: how will we provide effective and individualized care to our patients, as our health care system barrels ahead with population-based planning?
I, for one, am curious to find out what might happen next. I wonder about our evolving professional identity, the sustainability of the health care home for our most complicated patients, and the attainability of quality psychiatric care for the majority of our citizens under the proposed rules. I'm willing to bet that many of you are wondering, too. MPS has posted a link on our web site to the Kaiser Family Foundation, to introduce us to Health Care Reform resources. If you haven't begun to wonder what Health Care Reform will mean to our practice of psychiatry, perhaps this resource is the place to begin reading and thinking about both the challenges and the opportunities associated with all of those rules and schedules. As we learned from Drs. Gribbin, Dziadosz, Lenhart and Coffey on September 30th, the future is here, and fortunately, innovation is well underway. I urge us all to learn everything that we can about proposed reforms, and to continue to dialogue, advocate, and adaptively forge strategies for ensuring that our patients receive the care they need. There is much we will be able to learn from each other along the way.
Mary Roberts, MD
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 Member Survey
Please take a minute to answer a three question survey. Mentalnote will periodically ask questions to be used by the MPS Council and staff to improve services to members. This month's survey concerns the amount of time physicians spend responding to prior authorization requirements. To participate in the survey, please click here.
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Distinguished Fellowship
The Michigan Psychiatric Society is actively seeking members who would like to be considered for Distinguished Fellow status in 2012. Interested applicants should contact the office for details regarding the nomination process.
Distinguished Fellow status in the APA and MPS is a high honor; excellence, not competence, is the determining hallmark. The title of Distinguished Fellow is awarded to outstanding psychiatrists who have made and continue to make significant contributions in at least five areas of achievement. These areas encompass a wide range of professional and community activities and provide the opportunity of Distinguished Fellow status to members who have a broad range of skills and activities. A candidate must have been a General Member or a Fellow of APA for at least eight years. Fellow status is not a prerequisite for Distinguished Fellow consideration. A new APA requirement beginning in 2013 is that Distinguished Fellow applicants must be Board Certified
Contact MPS now to obtain the application information, and the upcoming winter months will allow ample time to complete what is required. Applications must be received by May 31, 2012 for consideration of Distinguished Fellow status which would be conferred in 2013 at the APA Annual Meeting. For more information on the application process, please call the MPS office, 517-333-0838.
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 Legislative Update:
Restrictions proposed for Medicaid Mental Health Drugs
There have been two hearings and several versions of bills that may affect the 2004 laws that protect access to Medicaid mental health drugs. MPS has been active in proposals and negotiations that would maintain access but to also find ways to address the need for cost-effectiveness. Legislators have been supportive of alternatives to prior authorization, but the Department of Community Health has resisted, stating that Medicaid mental health drugs should be handled in the same way that HMOs and commercial insurance operate. Read more about the advocacy efforts of MPS. |
 Tracking Health Care Reform:
Resources and Updates on Health Care Reform
The proposed MiHealth Marketplace would operate as Michigan's federally required Insurance Exchange.
Another development is the report from the Institute of Medicine, making recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services on the criteria and methods for determining and updating the essential health benefits package.
Read more about these new developments at MPS online Health Care Reform News
And for background links and resources, go to MPS online Health Care Reform Resources |
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Nominations for MPS Officers
The Michigan Psychiatric Society is calling for nominations of officers for the upcoming year. The offices which will be open include:
· President-Elect (one year term, followed by a year as President) · Vice-President (two year term) · Councilor (two year term - two positions) · APA Assembly Representative (three year term)
Elections will be held via email in March and new officers will take over their positions following the APA Meeting in May, 2012. Chairing the Nominations Committee is Denise Gribbin, MD, Immediate Past President. If you would like to nominate yourself, or any other member, please contact the MPS office at (517)333-0838 or by email at mps@mpsonline.org.
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Fall Scientific Meeting: Integrated Health Care: In Your Future --Another Successful Meeting--
The Fall Meeting of the Michigan Psychiatric Society, Integrated Health Care: In Your Future was held on September 30, 2011 in the beautiful Postma Center on the campus of the Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services in Grand Rapids.
Speaking were former MPS President Denise Gribbin, MD, Greg Dziadosz, PhD, CEO of Heart of the City Health Care in Grand Rapids, Karen Sanders from APA, Harold Lenhart, MD, founder of Trinity Mental Health in Saginaw, and M. Justin Coffey, MD, Medical Director of the Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Service and Associate Director of the Center for Brain Stimulation Therapies in the Department of Behavioral Health at the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS). All speakers addressed the need to integrate mental health with general medical care, and the push from the federal government to facilitate the necessary changes. Participant reviews were very positive for the meeting as a whole.
Please stay alert for save the date messages regarding the upcoming Spring Scientific Meeting.
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Members in the News
Early career psychiatrists Farha Abbasi, MD and Vasilis Pozios, MD (both former RPS Presidents) have both been in the news recently.
Dr. Abbasi hails from a very distinguished and political family in Pakistan (her sister is Speaker of the Pakistan Parliament.) She came to the United States to pursue her career in medicine and psychiatry at Michigan State University and was living here when the World Trade Center was attacked by Al Qaeda in 2001. On the 10th anniversary of the attack, she was interviewed by East Lansing radio station WKAR about how this experience changed her life and the life of everyone around her. (Partly as a result of this experience, she founded the (now) annual Muslim Mental Health Conference held by Michigan State University. To listen to Dr. Abbasi's story, please click here.
Dr. Pozios has far-reaching interests outside the world of psychiatry. He experienced the political world by serving as an APA Spurlock Fellow in the office of the Honorable John Conyers, Representative from Detroit. He also has a good deal of interest in the entertainment industry and was instrumental in founding a media project in 2008, Picture This, together with the Entertainment Industries Council, Inc (EIC) and WJBK Fox 2, to address and raise greater awareness of mental health in the Detroit community.
In addition to this endeavor, Dr. Pozios is working in the area of movies and comic books, both with a mental health theme. He recently submitted an op-ed piece to the New York Times on this subject, which can be accessed here.
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80-year old Physician Finishes Marathon
Blessed with good health (including no aching joints!) and a very important cause (brain disorder research), Dr. Tom Coles was the oldest (and not last!) finisher in the Detroit International Marathon on October 16, 2011. Tom ran (some) and walked fast (mostly!) 26.2 miles for the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, known until this year as NARSAD. It took about 6.75 hours.
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation is a unique charity as it has two family foundations paying its overhead costs so that 100% of donations for research go to research. Further information about this charity may be obtained from Tom, 313-885-0632, or donations may be made by going to www.bbrfoundation.org/events/TomColes. Photos of Tom will be on that website.
Note: MPS takes no position on the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.
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A group of busy, accredited, private, for-profit, outpatient behavioral health and substance abuse clinics, located in Bloomfield Hills, Clarkston, Ann Arbor and Plymouth are seeking additional psychiatrists to join our programs. Visit our website at www.heronridgeassocs.com. Position is flexible to the physician schedule and availability. Duties include psychiatric evaluations and medication reviews. Ideal for those wishing to "moonlight" as well as someone seeking to build their practice - caseload provided. We do not use electronic medical records, so no online record keeping needed. Board certified preferred, will consider Board eligible.
Please forward c.v. / malpractice to Debra Scheck
email: debra.scheck@heronridgeassocs.com
fax to 248-391-7478
phone 248-410-0650. |
 Chief Child/Adolescent Psychiatrist
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 ---Editorial--- Feelin' Good?
As of my sitting down to start drafting my editorial for this edition of MentalNote, I note that the day before yesterday was the first Monday in October. The Supremes are back at it. And, even though there apparently is not yet a case on their docket directly related to the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) statute of March, 2010 (unaffectionately referred to by some as "Obamacare"), the smart money says that this is not going to remain unadjudicated by those Nine as of November 8, 2012.
It goes without saying (still, I'll go ahead and say it!) that this law is controversial. The reasons why some say it goes too far and some say it does not go far enough are myriad. While some claim that American health care is already the best in the world (which is probably true if you are middle class or above, and insured), every honest commentator with at least a soupcon of knowledge and a lick of sense knows that, when all citizens are considered together, we are paying way too much for care that is (to put it very bluntly) second rate. Why?
Why, when so many of our standard-of-living peer countries can provide a lot more for a lot less? In fact, why, in so much consideration and planning for our future care system, does it seem (at least to this observer) that the lessons of these elsewheres are not being carefully and constantly considered? What have we got against Canada, Australia, Finland, Japan? Don't the doctors make enough in those places? Are they too socialized-are we a little too anti-socialized, and what's wrong with concern for more civil society socialization anyway?
Oh, yes, these are fighting words and fighting issues. Come on, we of the medical profession (and everyone else, since there is nobody who does not have a dog in this fight) should have this out. And if you think this is not about psychiatry, pray tell, think again. We all know beyond any shadow of a doubt that any system that fails all of its citizens will emphatically fail its most vulnerable, including those under our care. Can we be as good as we can be?
There, I feel so much better-but I know that this feeling just can't and won't last.
-Pythi
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Letter to the Editor
Dear Colleagues,
We have worked long and hard for mental health parity only now to see it facing erosion due to the failing economy and long-standing prejudices that such a situation notoriously uncovers. House Bill 4770 proposes that established insurance coverage for state employees' domestic partners and their families be cancelled. This would include faculty at our prestigious state universities and some of our current patients. This could negatively impact the recruiting and retention of talented citizens from our state. Michihgan cannot afford a brain-drain and our Society members should be encouraged to write to the clerk of the Senate to oppose this bill. Insurance should be for everyone and not discriminate.Letters to the Senate and Governor can be e-mailed to: bnestor@senate.michigan.gov where they will be read at the hearings or letters can be sent to one's individual legislator.
Sincerely,
Cassandra M. Klyman, M.D. Distinguished Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association Fellow, American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychotherapy; Am. College of Forensic Examiners Ass't. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University College of Medicine Past President, Michigan Psychiatric Society Chair: Michigan Psychoanlytic Committtee on Government, Insurance and Legislation
Editors Note: The preceding letter represents the opinions of Dr. Klyman and does not necessarily represent the stance of the Michigan Psychiatric Society.
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Mentalnote, the newsletter of the Michigan Psychiatric Society,
is edited by Oliver Cameron, MD, PhD.
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Contact Information
phone: 517-333-0838
mps@mpsonline.org |
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