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07/03/2024 Lawrence A. Santi, DPM
Victory! AMA Removes Offensive Social Media Post (Robert Scott Steinberg, DPM)
Dr. Steinberg asks what our APMA has done to put money back in members’ pockets. In addition to defending our members’ reputations from scurrilous attacks that could have a legitimate impact on their patient volume, our APMA is the leading organization protecting members from fee cuts, onerous payer policies, and more, all of which affect your bottom line.
Following advocacy by our APMA and others to change office and other outpatient E&M level selection methodology and advocacy to increase payment associated with those services, in 2022, podiatrists submitted approximately 530,000 more Level 4 and 5 office and other outpatient E/M services than in 2018, resulting in approximately $76.8 million more paid to podiatric physicians. That alone is roughly $4,600 per practicing podiatric physician, about five times the cost of full, active member dues. In addition, this figure does not account for the additional many millions of dollars we kept in podiatrists’ pockets when we successfully advocated against the 2018 podiatry- specific G codes proposal.
APMA’s tireless work on that proposal and the -59 modifier and -25 modifier alone has saved members hundreds of millions of dollars. These savings have easily covered the cost of APMA dues and more. Just last week, our APMA announced that after more than a year of advocacy efforts, our association succeeded in advocating for Novitas and First Coast Part B MACs to allow submission of medically necessary repeat nail avulsions and excisions with a KX Modifier appended when the medical record specifies the indication. Our APMA is looking to extend this practice to the other five MACs as well.
In addition, our payer advocacy has averted multiple significant cuts for podiatrists in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. Every year, our APMA immediately evaluates and responds to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule, strenuously opposing proposals that would negatively impact our members. This year, we avoided a 3.4-percent cut. The proposed rule for 2025 should be coming out next month.
Our APMA also provides outstanding tools to support your practice in saving money. Our APMA Business Mastercard offers 5% cashback on medical supplies and equipment and 2.25% cashback on everything else. Combine it with the savings through our relationship with Talar Medical, our preferred GPO, and your practice could save thousands. Participants in the APMA Registry who reported for MIPS during the past seven performance years saved a minimum of $3.7 million in negative payment adjustments.
Finally, our APMA is the only organization representing podiatrists at the AMA RUC, the body that provides physician recommendations to CMS about the value of codes, meaning we are the leading voice for podiatrists in determining the value of every service you submit for payment to Medicare.
So, in short, the answer is that our APMA is putting money back in your pocket every day. You could choose not to pay APMA dues (which have not increased in more than a decade), and you would save several hundred dollars per year. Or you could choose to continue to support the organization that puts tens of thousands of dollars in your wallet every year. That choice has always been clear to me. Lawrence A. Santi, DPM, APMA President
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