President’s Letter

This last year has been a busy one. Following in David Zhang’s footsteps has not been easy.   He and all the other presidents before him have laid the foundation for this wonderful community based non-profit organization dedicated to its members and to the patients we serve.  The health of a community relies upon the knowledge of the healthcare providers and hospital systems to understand their patients to make them safe, healthy and whole.

The prior presidents started the dialogue that I have continued with the hospitals that care for our patients.  We have met with the Executive Boards of NY Hospital Queens, Flushing Hospital, Lutheran Medical Center, The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Beth Israel Medical Center and Beth Israel Medical Center Kings Highway Division, Long Island College Hospital When Sichuan Province had an earthquake, we partnered in fundraising with the Asian American Bar Association o f NY (AABANY), North Shore/LIJ, ECAP, and our patients to raise money that eventually was donated to help 50 displaced college students from the province to continue their studies in the SUNY system.

NYHQ , under the leadership of Steve Mills, John Sciortino, MD and George Heinrich, MD (past Professional Achievement Award recipient), has been a shining star in Queens for us. NYHQ has hosted meetings for ACAP and the Chinese Medical Graduates (CMG’s), provided observerships, engaged in research projects, and sponsored the annual Health Fair at the Sheraton. They are always ready to help and engage in discussions on how they can do better; how NYHQ can help the community.

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By Brendan Scott and Fredric U. Dicker Post Correspondents
Last Updated: 11:31 AM, February 25, 2011

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo last night announced a dramatic agreement with the powerful health-care lobby to end perennialfights over ballooning Medicaid costs and permanently cap spending for the massive health insurance program.

The first-of-its-kind plan handed up by Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team would limit total spending on the program to$52.8 billion this year — capping the state’s share at $15.1 billion — and allow no more than 4 percent growth each yeargoing forward.

The proposal, which was OK’d by groups such as the state’s hospital association and the health-care union 1199 SEIU,recommended a series of rate cuts, incentives and program overhauls to cut projected Medicaid spending by $2.3 billionfor the next fiscal year — as Cuomo laid out in his first budget proposal.

Proposed reforms include:

• Capping non-economic medical malpractice awards, like pain and suffering, at $250,000.
• Assigning specific providers to oversee complex cases.
• Beginning to transfer nearly all of the state’s 4.5 million Medicaid enrollees to managed care from the dominant fee-forservicemodel.

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By Benjamin J. Spencer – Published: March 7, 2011 – 12:05 pm
Article can be found at http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110307/SMALLBIZ/110309891 

Click Here to read as pdf

New York City to start offering its free small business courses in Chinese, Korean and Russian; Latino and Asian immigrants startups grew the fastest, one study shows.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the plan as part of three new programs aimed at aiding New York’s immigrant entrepreneurs. The Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, in conjunction with the city’s Economic Development Corp. and Department of Small Business Services, are funding the programs.

The language component will begin “immediately” with the creation of a pilot program to translate the city’s free small business courses into Chinese, Korean, and Russian, according to EDC spokesman Kyle Sklerov. Existing Spanish language courses will also be expanded.

The initiative represents a step forward for immigrant businesses, according to Yanki Tshering, executive director of the Business Center for New Americans, a New York City-based nonprofit that aids immigrant entrepreneurs.

“It’s definitely been a long time in coming,” said Ms. Tshering. Historically, she said, there has been “a lack of awareness of the need for support for immigrant business, especially considering how progressive New York City is and the high number of immigrants that are here.”

The mayor’s actions come at a time when the percentage of new immigrant entrepreneurs soared nationwide. The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, which tracks monthly business creation, found that for 2010, an average of 620 out of 100,000 immigrants, or 0.6%, started a new business monthly, compared to only 280 out of 100,000,
or 0.3%, for native-born citizens.

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Assemblyman Robin Schimminger (D-Erie County) this week re-introduced the “Medical Liability Reform Act”, A.4381. The bill would enact a number of important provisions to control the outrageously high cost of liability insurance that physicians must pay in New York State, costs that if left unaddressed will continue to exacerbate existing access to care difficulties across New York State.

Provisions contained within the bill include: a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical liability actions; requiring a physician consulted for a Certificate of Merit necessary for the initiation of a lawsuit to sign an affidavit; assuring that defendants in medical liability actions are only responsible for their proportionate share of fault; and requiring the disclosure of the identity of an expert witness who will testify in a medical liability action.

After two years of legislatively enacted rate freezes, medical liability insurance premiums were permitted by the Superintendent of Insurance in July 2010 to be increased by an average of 5%. For some specialists in some regions of New York, the increase was close to 9%. These increases are on top of the 55-80% increases in premiums paid by New York?s physicians from 2003-2008, bringing the premiums paid by many specialists in New York to amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. These exorbitant costs are unsustainable.

As part of MSSNY?s presentation to the Governor?s Medicaid Re-Design Team, it was noted that as New York struggles to identify ways to address the $10 billion Budget deficit, we can no longer tolerate the excesses of a failed medical liability adjudication system. One way to reduce the extraordinary Medicaid cost burden to our State would be to better contain the liability costs facing physicians, hospitals and indeed, all health care providers. Not only would this reduce direct liability insurance costs, it would also reduce the very significant and well-documented costs of defensive medicine.

Co-sponsors of this important legislation include Assembly members: Magee, Reilly, Tobacco, Kolb, Barclay, Castelli, Crouch, Galef, Hawley, J. Miller, and Towns.

MSSNY applauds Assemblyman Schimminger as well as the co-sponsors for advancing this legislation to protect patient access to New York?s health care system. Physicians may use MSSNY?s Grassroots Action Center to send a letter to their elected representatives both on the state and federal level in support of liability reform by clicking here: http://capwiz.com/mssny/issues/alert/?alertid=23829501&type=ML&show_alert=1

I want to take the liberty of telling you about the Drexel Medicine Physician Refresher/Re-entry Course, which may be of particular interest to international medicall graduates of any physician seeking Read More (pdf)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released Final Rules defining the initial requirements physicians must meet to be eligible for the electronic health records (EHR) incentive program that begins in 2011. Rules were also issued on the technical capabilities required for certified EHR technology.

The 2009 stimulus package included money for physicians and hospitals to help off-set the cost of adopting EHR, as much as $26 billion in incentive payments over 10 years. Under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, eligible professionals could receive as much as $44,000 in incentive payments under Medicare and $63,750 under Medicaid. Hospitals could get millions of dollars under both programs Read More (pdf)

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