Washington State Medical Association (WSMA)

To help address the emerging public health crisis in Washington, the WSMA is collaborating with the Washington State Department of Health to bring WSMA members the latest in immunology and epidemiology with the current measles outbreak. Registration is now available for two sessions: 🔗 https://bit.ly/4oA0tIZ
📅 Friday, June 26, noon-1 p.m.
📅 Friday, Aug. 7, noon-1 p.m.

76% of patients agree that insurance company red tape makes it harder for physicians to provide the best care for their patients. A physician’s best day is spent caring for their patients, not navigating prior authorization approvals. The WSMA urges support for prior authorization reform so that prior authorization does not interfere with patients’ access to care. Learn more: https://wsma.org/advocacy/your-care-is-at-our-core/

Physicians want to provide care to every patient. Yet decisions made by third parties in health care are limiting how patients get the care they need and deserve. The WISeR pilot program is doing just that.

Says WSMA's Jeb Shepard: "Physicians groups have hired full-time staff just to process prior authorizations on the commercial side. Now they're being subjected to the same difficult processes on the traditional Medicare side. So, it's pulling clinicians away from patient care."

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4dIOR2N

Washington seniors face denied, delayed care under AI Medicare review program Five months into a pilot program that uses AI to review certain Medicare procedure requests, Washington seniors face new hurdles and worsening health outcomes, according to health care providers and lawmakers.

Are We Treating ADHD, Or the Conditions of Modern Life? Seattle family physician at Vera Whole Health Alina Urriola, MD, MPH, poses the challenging but necessary question: What does it mean, at a societal level, when growing numbers of adults require long-term stimulant therapy to meet everyday expectations of work and productivity? Her thoughtful concerns in this essay are born of compassion for patients—always the bottom line in the patient-physician relationship. Read her article at: wsma.org/your-care-is-at-our-core.

Thank you to everyone who attended last weekend's Leadership Development Conference! This year, attendees took a deep dive into leadership from a public health perspective, especially through how food insecurity affects patients' overall health and strategies for closing that gap, both in the exam room and at the system level.

Thank you to Jim Krieger, MD; David Ansell, MD; the team from Help Me Grow WA; Marie Spiker, PhD; Jennifer Maxwell, MD; Bindu Nayak, MD; Emely Barragan, MPH, and Gabrielle Frank, RD for speaking on different aspects of this important topic.

Plus, keynote speaker Kelly Casperson, MD, shared her perspective on how physicians can cut through the noise of health misinformation and the importance of physicians' clinical expertise as a core component of providing evidence-based medicine.

Effective communication is a key to maintaining trust with patients, and speakers Heather Sulejman and Lora Shahine, MD, talked about how language can help you disagree better and be a more effective messenger on social media, respectively.

We welcomed our two-time WSMA legislator of the year Sen. Marcus Riccelli, who talked about the legislative process using his years-long efforts to institute free school lunches for Washington students as an example of the persistence it takes to get bills passed in Olympia.

Save the date for next year's conference, May 21-22, 2027, in Chelan!

Last chance to register for this weekend's Leadership Development Conference! Registration closes at the end of the day today, May 11. Get away for the weekend while strengthening your leadership skills both in and outside of the exam room. See our full conference agenda and register at: wsma.org/ldc.