Electronic Summer 2023 | Issue 55
APA Assembly Report
By: Kenneth Busch, MD
Area 4 Representative
APA Assembly
The Assembly had its spring meeting in San Francisco in conjunction with the APA Annual Meeting. Representatives from most of the states and specialty organizations participated at the meeting.
The focus was on Action Papers (APs), which are part of APA policy making along with the Board of Trustees (BOT).
Some of the approved APs included:
Expanding Post-Graduate Opportunities for Unmatched Psychiatry Residency Applicant
Improving the Public and Healthcare Professionals Perception of Psychiatry and Psychiatrists
Text Communication to Improve APA National Election Participation
Addressing Structural Racism in the APA: Replacing Minority and Underrepresented (MUR) Terminology
Congrats to Dr. Swaminathan, author of the following approved AP titled: Furthering our APA’s initiative on the Collaborative Care Model.
This Action Paper states that Assembly leadership will convene a meeting with Assembly Representatives and District Branch Presidents in each of the District Branches that have not passed APA's State Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) legislation to encourage them to aggressively pursue enactment in their respective state legislature.
Most of these APs will need to be approved by the Joint Reference Committee (JRC) and BOT before they become official APA Policy.
The Assembly was also provided with updated information from APA staff and officers during this past year.
Dr. Saul Levin, CEO and Medical Director, spotlighted the top challenges that members continue to face. These include prior authorizations, preserving the physician/patient relationship, payment for services, maintenance of certification and safe prescribing/scope of practice.
We thank outgoing President Dr. Rebecca Brendel for exceptional service during her term and look forward to working with incoming President Dr. Petros Levounis. Dr. Levounis thanked the Assembly for raising important matters to the attention of Leadership and BOT such as information related to diversity and structural racism. He plans to focus this coming year on Addiction Psychiatry and leading the efforts for change.
Dr. Brian Hart, Chair of the APA Political Action Committee (PAC), provided an overview of the APA PAC. He highlighted the importance of making contributions to help with legislative initiatives on Capitol Hill, such as expanding access to telehealth, ensuring mental health parity, addressing mental health disparities, supporting maternal mental health and funding of programs.
Of particular interest was a special guest presentation by Dr. Jeffrey Lyness, President and CEO of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN). Dr. Lyness assumed this position in 2023 after the retirement of the previous CEO. Dr. Lyness spoke about the importance of input from APA into ABPN policies and looks forward to working with APA leadership with this process. He noted that ABPN and APA share a long history in support of our profession. We thank Dr. Lyness for taking the time to be with us and for having the opportunity to share this information with our constituents in the District Branches.
Along with the plenary sessions of the Assembly, Area 4 met separately with the Representatives from the 12 states in our area including IPS.
We were honored and privileged to have IPS President Dr. Andrew Lancia with us at Area 4. Dr. Lancia attended part of the business meeting and we thank Dr. Lancia for coming to our area.
The focus of Area 4 was primarily on Assembly business as a whole. In addition we are planning a summer meeting in August in Kansas City or Indianapolis and our winter meeting in Chicago next February.
We expressed our appreciation to the outgoing Speaker of the Assembly, Dr. Adam Nelson from California, for an outstanding year. We look forward to working with the incoming Speaker, Dr. Vasilis Pozios from Michigan.
Much gratitude is expressed to IPS Representatives for their excellent service and strong commitment throughout this past year:
Dr. Shastri Swaminathan, Dr. Linda Gruenberg, Dr. Arden Barnett and Dr. Joshua Nathan will continue representing IPS for this coming year. We also thank Dr. Christine Farag for serving this past year as RFM Deputy Representative for Area 4.
Please let IPS Representatives know of any matters you would like us to address this year in the Assembly and Area 4. It is a particular pleasure and exceptional honor to serve you.