President's Message

december 2022

Dear Florida Chapter Members,

Use the ACC PARTool to share stories about prior authorization
This year, the Michigan Chapter of ACC, along with partners in other medical societies, saw through final passage of a bill in their State Legislature which seriously curtails insurance companies’ ability to deny care through prior authorization practices. Specifically, the law requires insurers to promptly reply to requests or the care will be automatically authorized by the state. The chapter leadership wanted to remind you all that the ACC has a webtool for gathering information from front line clinicians about your experience with insurers and prior authorization. These reports are crucial to understanding the size and scope of the problem in Florida to inform our discussion with state legislators as their session gets started. Please use this link to send us your reports! The link is here: https://www.acc.org/PARTOOL

Join us for the January meeting in Miami!
Our FIT, WIC, and CVTeam meeting will be held on January 27 and 28 at the JW Marriott Turnberry Resort. The programming includes an abstract competition for FITs, high-yield clinical education for the CVTeam (non CVTeam members welcome too – we’ve got all types of CME & CEUs), and networking and life coaching for our Women Cardiologists. In addition to the excellent programming for these groups, the hotel features two golf courses and a private water park with multiple pools, slides, and a lazy river. My kids have already asked when we’re going back! Registration, agendas and hotel information is here.

Guidance on Dobutamine Shortage
If you are still experiencing issues with dobutamine shortages, multiple ACC member sections helped to write this summary explaining the causes of the shortage. One of the major issues is availability of the vials themselves, due to multiple manufacturing challenges. As the sole manufacturer of dobutamine in vials, Pfizer is anticipating completely filling all backordered in Q4 of 2022 or Q1 of 2023. The document also walks through five different clinical scenarios and how you might clinically be able to navigate alternatives where you might normally have used dobutamine.

Wishing you all a festive holiday season,

David Winchester, MD, MS, FACC
President, Florida Chapter ACC