The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) named Mark S.   Rosenberg, DO, MBA, FACEP as the new president-elect   during ACEP19 in Denver Colorado. ACEP's Council votes on the   president-elect, who will serve a one-year term and will assume the   presidency at  the organization's annual meeting in 2020.

"Emergency physicians are at the center of some of the biggest challenges in health care today, with respect to both clinical practice and public  policy," said Dr. Rosenberg. "I look forward to working with emergency physicians and health stakeholders nationwide to address the opioid epidemic and improve our approach to mental health care in this country. As sentinels of America's health care safety net, emergency physicians have a duty to protect access to emergency care for the millions of people we treat each year."

Congratulations to Dr. Kyrillos E. Attaalla of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School for receiving the 1st Annual Residents Cup for his presentation titled, "SIM WARS: ATTACK OF THE 3D PRINTS"

NJ-ACEP Leadership has suggested Bylaws changes that reflect the following:

1. Allowing an expired Board member to run again following a one-year hiatus (currently required to sit out a 3-year term)
2. Separating the Secretary/Treasurer position to separate officer roles
3. Limiting the President’s term to one year only

The suggested changes are included in the ballot sent to all Regular members.  You can view the marked up version of changes here.  The final version can be viewed here (if accepted by the membership).

Are you resident or medical student interested in health policy?  The New Jersey Chapter is giving away two $350 scholarships to attend ACEP’s Leadership & Advocacy Conference May 5-8 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC.  This conference provides the opportunity to hone leadership skills, stay current on legislative and regulatory issues, and meet with members of Congress to discuss the issues impacting emergency medicine. 

Deadline to apply is April 19, 2019.  CLICK HERE for form.  To learn more about the Leadership & Advocacy Conference click here: https://www.acep.org/lac/ .

As you may be aware, November 1, 2018 marked the implementation of the law establishing a $140 Medicaid emergency room triage reimbursement fee for low-acuity ED encounters that was approved as part of the Budget in June.  As a result of NJACEP’s advocacy in June during the Budget process, this law ONLY applies to low-acuity FACILITY reimbursement fees for emergency and NOT professional fees associated with these visits.   To view the ED Triage Reimbursement Non-Emergency Diagnosis Codes, CLICK HERE.

NJACEP with our colleagues at the NJ Hospital Association and NJ Hospital Alliance remained engaged with the NJ Department of Human Services and the Division of Medicaid through the process of defining “low acuity” and the codes associated with the $140 triage rate.  Drs. Langer, Hochman and Eisenstein played a significant role with the Medicaid Medical Director and their in-house Medicaid billing specialists to discuss real-life clinical encounters to help limit the outpatient codes that would be deemed non-emergent and low acuity when implemented, particularly helpful with mental health exclusions.

So, we are pleased to report that DHS after consideration of the NJACEP and hospital input has decided to drastically limit the outpatient codes that would be deemed non-emergent and be subject to receive the $140 triage rate from the initial list of 17,000 outpatient codes to about 1,200 codes. The Budget estimated $29 Million in state savings from this initiative however with the Commissioner’s definition of low acuity; these changes will only save $1Million.

NJ-ACEP is happy to report that all necessary processes for NJPMP integration with PreManage ED have been approved, finalized and documents outlining the process have been posted on the NJPMP DCA webpage available at https://www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/pmp/Pages/NJPMP-Integration.aspx. 

NJ Prescription Monitoring Program - NJPMP Integration

All prescribers and pharmacists MUST be registered with the NJPMP in order to receive patients' NJPMP reports via integration. It is important for all users to maintain an active and accessible account on the original NJPMP AWARxE platform as there may be situations in which EHR/PMS users will be unable to complete patient queries via PMP Gateway.

Please read the NJPMP Integration Guide, complete the NJPMP Integration Request Form, and review and sign the NJPMP Terms and Conditions Agreement below to initiate the integration process.

The documents can be found at the bottom of the following link: https://www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/pmp/Pages/NJPMP-Integration.aspx

Chairman McKeon and Members of the Committee,

Thank you for the opportunity to answer questions many of you had during the hearing last week, specific to  emergency department care and how patients are currently protected from out of network emergency bills.

I am Dr. Margie Langer, a board-certified emergency   medicine physician and President of the NJ Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.  I currently practice in an emergency department in Passaic County and prior to that I practiced in Essex County.  I am an Emergency Department Director responsible for the administration of the Emergency Department and the clinical care of patients in their time of greatest need and vulnerability.  I am here today hopefully to answer questions, specific to the staffing, network participation and billing of Emergency Departments (EDs). I hope you can indulge me slightly because it seems there is some basic Emergency 101 needed to understand who is providing care and submitting claims in an ED.