Page 19 - OPTA Access September 2017 Volume 45, Issue 2

Thank you to all candidates and OPTA student members for being such wonderful representatives of the SSIG and the profession! If you have any questions or suggestions for the SSIG, please contact myself or members of the SSIG board
For more information, contact Marka at:
marka.gehrig@osumc.edu
Federal Affairs Liaison Report
David Wessells, PT – Liaison
Is a busy and important time in Federal Affairs and we are working hard to advocate for the profession and our patients In March, a group of Ohio PTs traveled to Washington DC to attend the Federal Advocacy Forum There, we met with Ohio House Representatives and Senators to advocate for removing the Medicare Therapy Cap, adding
PTs to the National Health Service
Corps, supporting the Sports Medicine
Licensure Clari cation Act, adding PTAs as covered providers for Tricare, and several other public health issues We were able to get many new co-sponsors for our legislation from these and other grassroots efforts back home.
We have been working on educating legislators on PTs role in reducing the opioid epidemic and ghting for appropriate reimbursement for rehab services We have experienced success in the passage of locum tenens legislation and in advocating against reductions for “misvalued” CPT codes in rehab. While the Federal Advocacy team is working hard for you, this is a critical time where more grassroots efforts are needed The APTA believes in the importance of protecting Medicaid services, and that rehab services should be protected as an essential health bene t. Recent proposed legislation does not protect these values
This is a great time to call or write your legislator, attend a town hall, or schedule a meeting with your legislator Summer recess is when they return to their districts and want to hear from constituents about the issues that are affecting patients in their region and the state As your Federal Affairs Liaison,
I am here to assist you in any advocacy efforts and can provide you the resources you need to be successful. I look forward to partnering with you as we continue to move our profession forward
For more information, contact David at: david wessells@nationwidechildrens org
Research Committee Report
Dawn Westfall, PT, MPT & Cathy Bieber Parrott, PT, MS – Co-Chairs
The Research Committee is excited to welcome several new members this year Their new ideas and enthusiasm are greatly helping the committee as we work on new initiatives based on our recently updated strategic plan
One new initiative we are working on is to complete a needs assessment of OPTA members to identify your research needs We have developed a survey and the data we gain from it will help us focus on ways to meet your needs related to doing research and using evidence Please complete the survey at http://csumarketing.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ czFEf8BKh3868df and tell us about the research resources and information you need to inform your research and your use of research ndings.
The Research Committee is busy reviewing research project applications for the 2017 OPTA Research Small Grant award Each project is peer reviewed to obtain a quality score for ranking. Funds are awarded until the entire grant budget is dispersed The awarded investigators and their projects will be announced at the Scienti c Symposium in October 2017.
In the last ACCESS magazine we introduced the upcoming APTA PT Outcome Registry – a grassroots effort to promote physical therapists’ delivery of high-quality physical therapy. Well, the registry is now ready for you to join! This registry collects “our own” outcome data from clinics who voluntarily contribute to it The data is collected from your Electronic Health Record system – so no additional time/ effort is needed to provide the data once you do your documentation. The registry’s Scienti c Advisor Panel (SAP) will inform our profession by using data to develop clinical guidelines and compare PT services to other forms of treatment You can learn about your own practice by using reports developed from registry data about your clinic’s outcomes Investigators can request data from the SAP for use in your research projects The PT Outcomes Registry is an approved Quali ed Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the 2017 Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Participating in the registry will help you be able to receive future incentive payments More information about the APTA PT Outcome Registry is available at http://www ptoutcomes com/home aspx
We also want you to know about another resource the APTA provides to its members for both research and evidence based clinical practice APTA has secured permission for members to download copies of tests/tools/instruments
to be used for patient examination You can access tests
and measures that have been identi ed for clinical use in functional limitation reporting, as well as tests that have been cited in APTA member created Clinical Summaries and in APTA section-generated clinical practice guidelines Scoring information and important test statistics such as Minimal Clinically Important Difference values are also provided You can download the tool and this information from the PTNow webpage at APTA website PTNow is APTA’s evidence-based practice portal that provides tools to assist PTs and PTAs
by providing clinically related information of typically treated conditions. See you at OPTA Scienti c Symposium
in October!
For more information, contact Dawn or Cathy at: westfada@hotmail com or cbieberparrott@ysu edu
OPTA | September 2017 | 19
Committee and SIG Reports