May Bulletin Available

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ARTICLES
Photo Feature …………………….. 211
2013 ACMS Foundation Gala Awards
Celebration: Pittsburgh Proud
Materia Medica ………………….. 218
Recent Advances in the Landscape of Chronic
Phase CML Treatment
Nicole Cornish, PharmD Candidate
Karen Fancher, PharmD, BCOP
Legal Report ………………………. 224
Special Fraud Alert from OIG: Physician-owned
Distributorships
Paul Kenneth Vey, ESQ
Practice Management ………….. 228
Does Your Office Morale Need a Booster Shot?
Tracy Glenn, CPC-H, CCS-P
Special Report ……………………. 230
Foundation Grants: Birmingham Free Clinic

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Bulletin Photo Contest Guidelines

Entry Deadline:     Friday, August 30, 2013

The Allegheny County Medical Society sponsors an annual photo contest and the winning photos appear on Bulletin covers. Please read the guidelines below for this year’s contest.

• Only member physicians are eligible to enter the contest, with a maximum of three entries per individual. Each photographer will be limited to TWO winning entries.
• Select your best entries—color or black & white, print, slide or digital image—but, because we need a hard copy of each image for judging purposes, please convert your entries into prints before sending to ACMS Bulletin Photo Contest, 713 Ridge Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15212. Deadline for submission is Friday, August 30, 2013.
• Because Bulletin covers feature a vertical orientation, winning photos with a horizontal orientation will need to be cropped to fit that format. Your approval of this alteration is implicit with any entry with a horizontal orientation. Sorry, but we cannot accept panoramic shots or photos featuring specifically identifiable individuals and relatives. The Editorial Board makes final determination.
• Please label your entries only with a title and use a separate sheet of paper to record personal information such as your name, address or telephone number. We carefully number and track entries when they arrive so we can return them to their owners, but care is taken not to reveal personal information to contest judges, so please include only the title on the back of the photo entry.
• Contest judges will select 12 winners, including one grand prize winner that will appear on the January 2014 Bulletin cover; the remaining 11 winners will appear on Bulletin covers throughout 2014. Other entries will appear inside the Bulletin as space allows. All photos will be returned by the end of 2014.

For more information, call Linda Smith
at (412) 321-5030 or e-mail lsmith@acms.org.

Thank you to everyone that made the 2013 ACMS Foundation Gala a success!

Photographs from the evening are available from Viglione Photography. Share your thoughts about the Gala.  Take our quick survey. Pittsburgh Tribune Review’s coverage of the event. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Coverage. Mark your calender for next year! Saturday, March 8, 2014 Omni William Penn Hotel

National Physician Payment Transparency Program: OPEN PAYMENTS

From CMS.Gov

The National Physician Payment Transparency Program (OPEN PAYMENTS)  is intended to create greater transparency around the financial relationships of manufacturers, physicians, and teaching hospitals.

OPEN PAYMENTS will require the following information to be reported annually to CMS:

• Applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies to report payments or other transfers of value they make to physicians and teaching hospitals to CMS.
• Applicable manufacturers and applicable group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to report to CMS certain ownership or investment interests held by physicians or their immediate family members.
• Applicable GPOs to report to CMS payments or other transfers of value made to physician owners or investors if they held ownership or an investment interest at any point during the reporting year.

CMS  plans to collect this data, aggregate it, and publish it on a public website.

Resources

CMS.gov OPEN PAYMENTS website

CMS.gov Fact sheet for Physicians

Revised OSHA Hazard Communication Standard

Hazard Communication Standard

In order to ensure chemical safety in the workplace, information about the identities and hazards of the chemicals must be available and understandable to workers. OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) requires the development and dissemination of such information:

• Chemical manufacturers and importers are required to evaluate the hazards of the chemicals they produce or import, and prepare labels and safety data sheets to convey the hazard information to their downstream customers;
• All employers with hazardous chemicals in their workplaces must have labels and safety data sheets for their exposed workers, and train them to handle the chemicals appropriately.

Resources

• OSHA Hazard Communication Standard Website
• 2013 Medical Office Occupational Health and OSHA Update - May 8th, 2013 – ACMS Building