Vol. 4, Issue 2 December 2004

Hello from Your President-

CLMA Vision

CLMA provides leadership in the clinical Laboratory industry supporting lab professionals at every stage of their career. We educate and advocate on behalf of our members and play a leadership role in enhancing the image and increasing visibility of our profession.

These statements are the CLMA organizational vision for you as a member. As CLMA pursues what they can do for us, we need to think about what we as members can do for the organization and our local chapter. There are many of you with talents and skills no one knows about. There are many of you who would have so much to contribute to a professional organization, but remain quiet members. How can we tap into those skills and talents and use that local Chapter talent? How can we be better educators of our profession? How can we be better advocates for strengthening the laboratory industry, getting congressional laboratory issues in the forefront of our Senators and House of Representatives? How can we create a profession we are all proud of… so we can truly tell others, "Become a laboratorian, it's a great profession."

I believe we have joined CLMA because we are all leaders in our profession. We are looking for the camaraderie of people like ourselves. We are people who want to make a difference in our personal lives and our professional lives. We are people who believe in commitment and working together through common goals. Reaching these goals, we cannot always go alone. Same with the Siouxland Chapter, we cannot be better educators or advocates, unless we work together. It is our responsibility and commitment as members to take the bull by the horns and be exemplary leaders. People want leaders who care passionately about their job, and care passionately about their profession. This, at times, is hard to do on a daily basis. We need encouragement and motivation to look forward. The Siouxland Chapter can offer that encouragement and motivation by participating as an involved member. This is a great opportunity for all of you and a benefit we don’t always tap into. The caliber of people we have as members is unbelievable! When I look down our members list I am so proud to be able to know you, and there are some I have not met. But just the same, knowing that you chose to become a CLMA member over other memberships sets you apart. Chapter networking is vital for our careers, and vital for sharing ideas and profiting from someone else’s experiences or errors.  Chapter networking is crucial for keeping up with the latest trends and developments in this fast growing industry. And most importantly, networking may give you a feeling that you are not alone in this industry. Being able to communicate and listen to others gives us strength and energy to look forward into our vision and dreams.

I did not know when I became a CLMA member, how much this would mean to me. It may have been this position that has helped me in my commitment, and I have all of you to thank for that. Let us look forward as leaders in our profession. Renew commitment through our Siouxland Chapter. Reach out and help our fellow members, and bring in new members.  There is so much we can accomplish through involvement as a group. It’s up to you.  Involvement has many rewards. 

Leadership is vision,
Leadership is guts,
Leadership is energy,
Leadership is saying "It's up to me."

J.Gannon
Des Moines Register

Kari Nornes
Siouxland Chapter President

Collaboration

 What is National CLMA doing to collaborate with other organizations? Currently, CLMA has collaborated with twelve other laboratory professional organizations. These collaborative activities and alliances with others share values, vision, and strategies. The intent is to achieve mutually beneficial objectives for each other’s organizations and/or members. Here are some examples of current collaborations and the relationship or activities that we share:

ASCP - Combined Annual Conference programs
Clinical Lab Coalition - Leadership in Advocacy
CDC - Quality Institute
COLA - e-Learning program, and Educational track at the Annual Conference
CCCLW - Workforce Shortage Project
CAP - Shared Education programs, Coding Caucus
Lab Health Coalition - Enhance public’s image of the Laboratory
NCCLS - Assist in development of Quality Systems Products, Co-marketing
ASCLS - Legislative Day
NAACLS - Facilitate communication between educators and managers
AABB - Participation in CPT Coding group
AACC - Lab Tests Online

The CLMA Siouxland Chapter has locally made collaboration efforts. This fall we again signed a contract with the South Dakota ASCLS professional organization to help plan 20% of the program content for the Spring meeting. The dates of the meeting are May 4 –6, 2005, in Rapid City, South Dakota. Each fall, we join the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations for their Fall conference. This event collaborates through shared continuing education sessions from all departments of the healthcare facility.

As a local Chapter, we need to look for more areas of collaboration and those whom we can work with to help make are profession strong. These opportunities give us visibility among other professionals, show we are leaders in our profession, and experts others can rely on. Let’s think of other ways our chapter can work together to strengthen our profession and the future of the laboratory.

CAC Update

The following is an overview of what Twila Henning, our CAC representative, discussed at our SDAHO membership meeting on September 23 and from the next CAC meeting on September 25, 2004.

CLMA CAC Committee

A new CLMA CAC committee has been formed which will look at issues that come from the CAC meetings. A subcommittee was also formed of Noridian representatives from the 13 states Noridian covers as their contract carrier. The subcommittee has representatives from physician offices, independent laboratories, and DME suppliers. Initially the group discussed the possibility of trying to raise the Medicare fee reimbursement for states that are not paid under the National Fee Limitation Rate on the Medicare Fee Schedule. After numerous e-mails, it was determined that while each state has a number of tests not at the Limitation Rate, it is beyond the scope of this group to address this issue.

Dr. John Olds, Intermediary Medical Director for CAHABA in Iowa and South Dakota, will be retiring in the near future. Dr. Greg McKinney will be taking over Dr. Olds’ responsibilities. Dr. McKinney is based in Alabama. 

Dr. Ed Hertko, Carrier Medical Director for Noridian SD & Iowa, will be replaced by Dr. George Waldmann. He can be reached at george.waldmann@noridian.com or 503-977-1205, or by fax # 503-977-1201.

Dr. Olds informed the CAC committee that consolidation of LMRP/LCDs of Part A and Part B is currently underway. Whenever there are similar policies, CAHABA Part A will make changes to parallel the Part B policy. If there is no policy on the Part B side, the CAHABA SD/IA will look at the other states within the CAHABA group for guidance. On the Noridian Part B side, there is standardization within the states they cover. Dr. Waldmann indicated that the LMRP/LCD policy that has the most ICD-9 codes will serve as the template for all of the states that file to Noridian. Screening codes will not be included in the LMRP/LCD unless the SSA has mandated coverage of screening.

CAC Meetings

A coding representative will not be a member of the CAC. It is very important that all draft policies be reviewed by healthcare facilities and comments made to the CAC.

There has also been discussion as to the role of the CAC. CMS may think of phasing this committee out. The attendees of CAC felt this would have a negative impact on the medical communities by not allowing them to provide input into these LMRP/LCD policies.   Future CAC meetings will be held by teleconference, with the exception of the June meeting, which will be held at the SD Medical Association meeting. The teleconference meetings will only be accessible to the CAC members. You may sit in on the teleconference at a CAC member’s site, but you would be unable to make any comments. Comments can be made on the Open Door calls, which are held one week prior to the CAC meetings via teleconference. The Noridian Web site would have this information.

Future Continuing Education

CLMA/ASCP Conference and Exhibition "ThinkLab '05”", March 5-–8, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois. 

South Dakota ASCLS/CLMA Siouxland Chapter Spring Meeting, May 4–-6, 2005, at the Ramkota Inn, Rapid City, South Dakota.

South Dakota Associations of Healthcare Organizations Fall Meeting (SDAHO), September 2005, in Rapid City, South Dakota.

 

Membership 

We thank the following members who have renewed their CLMA Siouxland Chapter membership since July 1,^,2004.

Michael Dott
Harold Eichmann
Janice Erkes
Elizabeth Frangedakis
Twila Henning
Marsha Houska
John Kangas
Mary Parr
Kay Reinartz
Bev Ulmer
Kathleen Winter
Kathryn Zirpel|

Our current membership is 54 members. We had two new members join these last few months. Sandra Hanson, Laboratory Manager from Ortonville Area Health Services, Ortonville, Minnesota; and Nancy Ellison, Infection Control Coordinator from Northwest Iowa Health Center, Sheldon, Iowa. Please welcome these two new members into our Chapter.

2004 Board/Membership Meetings 

SDAHO Meeting, September 23, 2004

A thank you to all 31 CLMA Siouxland Chapter members who attended the SDAHO convention on September 23, 2004, at the Convention Center, Sioux Falls, SD. What a fantastic turnout!!! Patty Buus, from Winner Regional Healthcare Center, Winner, SD—and a Siouxland Chapter member—won our CLMA denim shirt as our door prize. Patty plans on wearing that shirt to the National CLMA conference in Chicago next March.

And a special thank you to our Education committee for organizing a great program: Rick Pudwill, Coordinator, Erica Boltjes, Mel Heinz, and Bev Ulmer.

Chapter Treasurer Update

The Siouxland Chapter Treasurer responsibilities were passed to our Secretary, Karen Jepperson in October.  Karen will continue acting as Secretary & Treasurer through the end of the year.  Our new Treasurer position will then begin a new two-year term, January 2005.  We thank Larry Weaver for his time and organizational skills in maintaining our financial report as Treasurer these past four years.

Newsletter Topics

We appreciate member involvement and are very interested in topics you would like to appear in this newsletter. Please e-mail your topic suggestions to Kay Knoblock at: knoblock@siouxvalley.org. Or if you are interested in being involved with the newsletter committee, please contact Kay Knoblock.

Siouxland Chapter Web site

The Siouxland Chapter Board is always looking for ways to stimulate vendor sponsorship of our Chapter Web site. Please contact a Board member with your ideas. We are also looking for information that you would like to find on our Chapter Web site. Please check out the Siouxland Chapter Web site at: www.clma-siouxland.org.    

 

My Christmas Wish to all of you ~ 

May your heart and home
Be Christmas blessed-
May your new year be the Very Best. 

Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!!!