Pulmonary Medicine Health Policy Summit

October 15, 2012

The American Association for Respiratory Care is proud to be part of a group of key pulmonary-related societies and others interested in health policy that will convene for a Pulmonary Medicine Health Policy Summit to be held in Washington, DC on April 8–9, 2013. The goal of the Summit is to address a limited number of specific issues facing the pulmonary medicine community that lend themselves to regulatory and/or legislative solutions.

At the two-day summit’s conclusion, a detailed strategic roadmap will be developed and widely distributed across the pulmonary medicine community. The conference findings will also be distributed from the participating societies to inform their respective constituencies. The issues that will be address have been vetted by the respective societies and will involve several hours of discussion from experts, including members of Congress and their staffs, representatives of regulatory agencies and nationally recognized experts and include:

• Performance measures for pulmonary medicine and their impact on health policy/readmission rates, pay for performance, etc.
• NHLBI funding of COPD; COPD as public health issue
• Telemedicine for pulmonary related diseases—the technology, access, barriers, etc.
• Documentation/HER
• Oxygen payment reform

Other professional associations scheduled to participate include: the National Association for Medical Direction of Respiratory Care (NAMDRC), the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), the American Thoracic Society (ATS), the National Home Oxygen Patients Association, and the COPD Foundation.