The U.S. & Canadian Academy of Pathol-

ogy (USCAP), on the other hand, hasn’t yet found it critical to educate its members about the possible impact of the PPACA. “We’ve had nominal conversations, very nominal conversa- tions,” about offering programming that deals directly with the Affordable Care Act, said Kerry Crockett, CAE, CMP, USCAP’s executive direc- tor. “Typically, the education that we put forth is really more about the diagnosis of biopsy, etc. Our members don’t necessarily have direct patient contact. For us, it does not seem to be as big [a concern] as for some of our colleagues who are in different medical societies. “A lot of our educational content comes from outside faculty — it is driven from the community, so to speak,” Crockett said. “We haven’t really seen any discussion about [the PPACA] in terms of ‘I think we need to start educating about it.’ Inter- nally, we are having some of those conversations about when it hits, are we going to be ready and are we going to be able to meet the needs of our members? We are really looking to our patholo- gists that are on our education committee to guide us in terms of what programming is going to be.”

How CME Will Change One thing seems certain: the nature of CME

education will have to evolve as a result of the PPACA. “From a CME perspective, a piece of it is the education around what are the evidence-based best practices for population management for car- ing for patients in teams and so on,” NPA’s Scott said. “Which is a little different than what we see in CME, which is what’s the contemporary man- agement of diabetes, or something like that. If you think about it, there’s evidence-based medicine and then there’s evidence-based delivery of care. I’d say from a subject-matter perspective, it may be a bit of a change” in terms of the programming that’s offered at conferences. The ACO model is “basically about getting

together with a group of providers to provide cost-effective, high-value care,” Scott said. As the number of ACOs grows, that “may influence the revenue stream of some high-end specialties. So I’d say those are the ones who are the most con- cerned — you know, radiology, orthopedics, some of those kind of specialties; cardiology has already seen a pretty big hit. And some of them are going to be thinking about CME. They may be a little

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tighter with their budgets because they’re going to start seeing their income shrinking, potentially. “They’re going to need to learn how to kind of cope with the changes that are coming, which are potentially not so much in their favor,” Scott said. “And so from a CME perspective, again, gear- ing up with learning how to kind of manage your way through the change and if there are changes you need to make, the way you’re going to need to collaborate with people — and how much credit you’re going to be able to get for that kind of stuff.” As physicians join hospitals, academic institu-

tions, and other practice groups, Scott said, they probably get a CME allowance, as opposed to having to pay for conferences and CME out of their own pocket. “So from that perspective, I’d say that’s probably good news [for medical meetings,] because [for] doctors [it will be] use or lose it,” he said. However, physicians employed by larger entities — group hospitals or group practices — are likely to have less of a choice about what confer- ences they would like to attend, Scott said, and probably will be “pushed into conferences that the organization deems are going to help move a larger agenda along. “That’s the other big thing that I think your

industry should be thinking about,” Scott contin- ued. “That group may have an agenda — like, ‘these are the six things we’re trying to improve this year.’ Then they’re going to want to have directed CME focused on educating their doctors and getting them on board with these particular improvement efforts. There’s a need for CME — like, this is the latest new development in rheumatology or cardi- ology or whatever it is — and then there’s, how do I actually bring that back to my institution and get it implemented in less than a decade? And that’s the disconnect we’ve had for a long time, in my view, with CME.”

No Time at All Not only will lack of choice become an issue as the

Affordable Care Act unfolds, but so will increased time constraints, according to Kathleen Flood, CEO of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiol- ogy (ASNC). “As physicians merge into larger groups and/or become hospital employees, their ability to attend conferences will be challenged since they will have a discrete number of days for these activities,” she said. “It is my opinion that this trend will continue to grow. The more senior

PCMA.ORG

+ ON THE WEB › The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently released its final rule on the PPACA’s Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which has major implications for medical meeting professionals. To read the Policy and Medicine blog’s

“Final Rule Top 50 Things to Know,” visit policymed.com/ affordable-care-act.

› For an in-depth Convene article about the PPACA’s Sunshine provision, visit convn.org/ aca-sunshine.