The College has accomplished many of the goals set for Vision 2020 – the strategic initiative we began in 2014 – to solidify the College’s position as the premier organization for practicing allergists.
The College continues to grow, not only in membership, but in our accomplishments in advocacy, education, practice management, public education and more.
We’re about to embark on the College’s Annual Meeting, and it continues to be the most relevant educational program with cutting-edge research and optimal networking.
Our Advocacy Council is continually at work to make sure the voices of our members are heard loud and clear. It’s especially important in today’s changing health care landscape. The College’s asthma alternative payment model has been submitted to the Physician-focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee. Our advocacy on proposed changes to USP 797 was rewarded and acceptable standards will go into effect in 2020. The Advocacy Council, with the support of the Practice Management Committee, has been working to provide resources for members to meet the new standard.
Earlier this summer, the College and Advocacy Council signed a letter to the chair and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to express our concerns with the draft Lower Health Care Costs Act that does not adequately solve the surprise billing issue.
New content continues to be added to our online education hub, the College Learning Connection. Our newest addition is the educational module on allergy testing coding. This brings our total to twelve educational modules, each 15 minutes long, to learn more about a variety of clinical and practice management topics. Our webinars walk you through relevant topics, and members can access them at no charge. Recent webinar additions include topics on steps to implement the new USP 797 standards, coding for food oral immunotherapy, getting your practice ready for peanut OIT and infant anaphylaxis.
Another online resource, the Practice Management Center, offers valuable tools to improve practice efficiency. We recently launched biologics and telehealth toolkits and severe pediatric asthma shared decision-making resources, which help you work with parents to determine best treatment options for their children. We continue to add/update our prior authorization appeal letters.
Where are we headed? Vision 2020 comes to a close at the end of next year, and I am pleased in our progress toward meeting the goals and initiatives of this ambitious six-year plan. The College is already looking beyond Vision 2020. We will soon begin the research stage of our bottoms up planning for 2021-2023. We will ask our members what is most important to them. We will work with our committees to gather their ideas on where we should focus our efforts in each of their specialty areas. We will take these ideas and work from them to form the goals, strategies and tactics to focus on in 2021-2023.
As I finish my year as president at the Annual Meeting, I want to thank the countless volunteers who give their time to move the College forward, as well as the administrative staff at the executive office. Due to our team effort, the College is in a strong position moving toward the future.
It has been very rewarding – professionally and personally – to serve as College president this year. I know my successor, J. Allen Meadows, MD, FACAAI, will bring new innovative ideas forward and is ready to lead the College through new challenges.
Todd Mahr, MD, FACAAI
College president
