President’s Message

Hello SOCCA and happy summer!

It was great to see so many of you at the 2024 Annual Meeting, presented by IARS and SOCCA, in my old hometown of Seattle.  We presented what has to be the most extensive lineup of critical care content ever at a SOCCA meeting.  Many thanks to Allison Dalton and Kunal Karamchandani for an excellent group of topics and speakers.  Although the “feel” of the meeting is a little different, I hope you would agree the spirit is very much alive.  IARS has been a gracious partner in supporting the meeting.  The energy we bring to the meeting helps their own mission of education.  We make a great partnership!

As your new President, I am eager to continue our path of engagement.  Our robust committee and subcommittee structure is doing great things.  There are no small plans for this incredible team.  Jennifer Rzepka, our Executive Director from the Association Resource Center (ARC), has been a tireless champion of the Society, and our transition to ARC management has been very smooth.  I’ll also give a shout-out to Andrew Bronson and the rest of the ARC team, who have done a terrific amount of work behind the scenes to keep up our communications and presence on the internet and social media.  Great job and great energy!

Critical care practice faces special challenges currently.  One particularly important one is the Medicare Critical Care Payment Policy, and the time criteria for 99292 (critical care, subsequent 30 minutes).  Current policy requires physicians to provide 104 minutes of critical care service before they can bill 99292, a change from a requirement of 74 minutes previously.  Our partners in the ASA, in collaboration with multiple societies, sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), asking to return to the former requirement.  

It should be a very exciting year.  Stay tuned and stay engaged!