In an effort to keep our membership informed of the activities and health of the association, we are posting our most recent collection of NERVES committee reports. In this issue you will find the CSNS Liaison Update, Education Committee Report, the Membership Committee Report, and the Survey Committee Report.
CSNS Liaison Update
By Derek Cantrell, CSNS Liaison
- My first CSNS meeting happened in LA, April 20-21. Attendance required:
- Fellows Breakfast with Executive Committee
- Medical Practice Committee
- Plenary Sessions
- Luncheon with Speaker
- Executive Committee Meeting – Dr. Ratliff presiding
- Practice Management Committee – Dr. Tumialan presiding
- Dr. Tumialan did not attend. I did meet with him briefly at the CSNS EC Meeting. We discussed the Resolution listed below.
- NERVES related resolutions
- Resolution VI: Addressing Delays in the Surgical Billing Cycle and Reimbursement Process in Surgical Procedures where Prior Authorization was Obtained. Proposes for CSNS to work with NERVES to gain better understanding of the effects of delayed reimbursements in the setting of prior authorization. Assess the factors contributing to delays and the cost of these delays to neurosurgeons in practice to be able to make policy changes to improve efficiency of reimbursement.
- No meeting / discussion on content to date
- Ad Hoc
- Multiple emails with Dr. Schermer from the Medical Practice Committee about slicing NERVES Trauma Call data. With KSM help, provided some samples. More to come.
- Next Meetings:
- July 28 – DC – Summer CSNC EC Meeting
- Sep 8/9 – Congress/DC – CSNS EC Meeting, Committees, Dinner
- Mar 2/3, 2024 – Winter CSNS EC Meeting
- May 2/3, 2024 – AANS/Chicago – CSNS EC Meeting, Committees
Education Committee Report
By Galyn Damiani, Education Committee Chair
Chair: Galyn Damiani. Members: Kathy Tobin, Jim Shea, Alex Palleschi, Stacey Snodgrass, Carrie Bennett, Jason Philip, Mark Vorherr, Ellyce Patton, Kelly Hornbacher, Antoine Curtis, Melissa Klingberg
The Education Committee has focused on three primary areas to facilitate education for our members. The first area is our bi-monthly webinars in which our extremely resourceful committee members collaborate to monitor the listservs for hot topics and leverage their networks to connect with sponsors and speakers who can provide expertise to our membership. The committee continues to work to identify key industry topics and trends to bring educational content that will add value and attract additional attendees.
The second area of focus is the virtual mini-conference. Our second, annual mini-conference is coming on November 16, 2023 and will feature topics of financial recovery in the healthcare and hospital environments as well as strategies to leverage physician engagement to drive cost reduction and improved patient outcomes. The committee continues to discuss ideas for how best to structure the mini-conference to facilitate engagement and peer learning around the content that is presented. This year will feature roundtables by ownership type.
Our final area of focus is creating and developing a toolkit for new and existing administrators to exchange tools and templates for commonly used items like proformas, business plans, training tools and educational tools. We all frequently utilize these items and would like to develop a resource pool so our members can leverage best practices and not have to create tools from scratch. This was originally focused on members new to their roles, however these resources will also offer long-term members the ability to leverage best practices from other organizations as well.
I’m proud to be part of such an engaging and dedicated group of committee members who continually focus on finding ways to facilitate education for our membership – please take a moment to thank our committee members for their thought leadership and continual pursuit to provide value to you!
Membership Committee
By Antoine Curis, Membership Committee Chair
The membership committee has been working hard on several initiatives to increase our NERVES membership.
- We have a social media presence with LinkedIn! Follow us!
- We have members attending this year’s MGMA conference and will be networking.
- Starting a Mentorship Program – we have several who have signed up!
- Developing a “flyer” to broadcast NERVES to increase awareness and value of NERVES
- Compiling list of national and regional societies to contact hopefully will increase membership
- Help us by sending in society websites or emails to contact
- We have had increased interest in the committee and are working on strategies for inclusion – we can always use extra help.
- Our statistics by region:
- North/Midwest = 31%
- Northeast = 18%
- Southeast = 33%
- Southwest = 19%
- Looking to balance the scales and increase memberships from the Northeast and Southwest
Survey Committee
By Brent Patterson, Survey Committee Chair
The Survey Committee is working towards an August release of the 2023 NERVES Socio-Economic Survey data request. After a significant decline in participation in 2022, the Committee developed a questionnaire that went out to all NERVES members at the beginning of June in an attempt to understand the results that are most important to our members, barriers to completing the survey and adjustments the Committee could make to the survey that might increase participation. The Committee met in late June to go over the results of the questionnaire and used that information to pare down the survey in several areas as we prepare for the release in August. The Committee is hopeful for a great initial response and will explore different avenues once the survey is released to insure an outstanding return rate and a more meaningful survey in 2023.
If you are interested in serving on the Survey Committee, please reach out to Brent Patterson at [email protected].