American Venous Forum

Dear Members of the AVF,

I am pleased to announce that effective November 1, 2018, the Board of Directors of the AVF has put in place a new administration to provide much needed administrative support for our members and organization. After a highly competitive search process, Veritas Meeting Solutions (Veritas), a Chicago-based association management company, has been selected to provide management services and administrative support for the AVF and the AVFF.

Founded in 2013 by industry professionals, Sue O’Sullivan and Donna Kelly, each with nearly two decades of association management experience, Veritas is completely dedicated to managing non-profit medical associations and continuing medical education meetings for academic institutions. Currently, Veritas is providing management services to 18 medical sub-specialties and 10 academic institutions. Client organizations include: radiologists, urologists, endocrinologists, robotic surgeons, plastic surgeons, otolaryngologists, pediatricians and now vascular surgeons. With a full time staff of 19 dedicated and highly talented professionals, Veritas has the breadth and depth of experience as well as the infrastructure to support the growing needs of the AVF.

I am personally thrilled with the selection of Veritas as our management service provider and believe the AVF and AVFF are in good hands administratively. Should you need information about AVF activities or resources to support your practice, please feel free to contact the AVF Membership Team at 847-752-5355.

In addition to selecting Veritas as our management services provider, your Board has hired John Forbes as the Interim Executive Director of the AVF. John brings a wealth of experience to the AVF having served in similar leadership roles with the American Academy of Periodontology, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Red Cross. John has been asked to provide executive leadership of the AVF until a permanent Executive Director is selected and can be reached at john@balancedgrowth.com.

Finally, both the Board of the AVF and AVFF are thrilled to have the continued service of Jeffrey Mendola, Director of Mission Advancement for our foundation, the AVFF. Jeff plays a critical leadership role as our main point of contact with industry and has been instrumental in bringing much needed, mission-advancing resources to our organizations. He can be reached at jeffrey@www.veinforum.org.

I would like to thank you for all you do to help patients afflicted with vascular disease and for your membership in the AVF. I am proud and honored to serve as your president and hope to see you at our upcoming Annual Meeting in Rancho Mirage, California from February 19-22, 2019.

With Appreciation,

Elna Masuda
President
American Venous Forum

Earlier this year, the American Venous Forum and AVF Foundation adopted “Healthy Veins for Healthy Life.”  One of our 4 strategic “Healthy Veins” initiatives is to Advocate for Access.  Two objectives of this initiative are to:

• Promote evidence-based best practices to ensure that all patients have access to the highest quality care. This includes access for all patients, regardless of where they choose to live.
• Become point society for questions from the FDA, CMS, 3rd party payers, RUC and MEDCAC. The AVF would be an optimal clearing house for insurance and government issues.

On 7/24/18, the American Venous Forum took another step forward in support of these goals.

Under the direction of the Health Policy committee chairs,  Fedor Lurie and Kathleen Ozsvath, and AVF leadership BK Lal (President-Elect), Hal Welch (Vice-President), and Elna Masuda (President), the AVF group met with the Coverage and Analysis Group (CAG) of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid of the Department of Health and Human Services at the CMS headquarters in Baltimore.

Representing CMS were Tamara Syrek Jensen (Group Director, CAG), Joseph Chin (Deputy Group Director, CAG), Lori Ashby (Division Director-Division of Policy and Evidence Review), Marie Casey (Program Management Officer, CAG), Jyme Schafer (Medical Officer, CAG) and David Dolan (Analyst, CAG).

This was not our first meeting with CMS.  The AVF met with CMS in April of 2016 and May of 2017.  AVF representatives also participated in CMS meetings with the Wound Care Alliance in November of 2015 and January of 2016.

This meeting focused on the issue of inconsistent local coverage determination and opportunities to harmonize reimbursement policies for the treatment of patients with venous disease across the nation.

The actions taken following our CMS meeting a year ago and their results were discussed.  We also talked about opportunities to collaborate in addressing remaining obstacles and new challenges for securing and maintaining patients’ access to appropriate care.

The meeting featured extremely friendly conversations, a complete reversal on the NCD issue, an openness to the idea of a disease-targeted NCD, and a willingness to work together closely in the future.

This productive meeting resulted in a plan of action that will be refined and serve as the basis for increasingly close collaboration between the American Venous Forum and the CMS.

Together with CMS, the American Venous Forum has taken another large step forward in pursuit of “Healthy Veins for Healthy Life.”