Letter from the President: Pennsylvania Neurological Society 2019

Dear Colleague,

I am pleased to announce that starting in 2019 the Pennsylvania Neurological Society is waiving dues for general membership as part of an effort to promote a larger and stronger Neurology community across the state. We are also opening membership to neurologically specialized Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants in recognition of their increasingly important role in the field and their many shared interests with neurologists.

What does this mean? As a practicing neurologist or other qualified neurological practitioner, you are automatically a member, can receive electronic updates, and may participate in our online platforms. You may always opt out of our email communication. If you want to be more involved, take advantage of additional benefits, or just want to show more support, consider becoming an Active Member. Please email us or visit our website to see what opportunities are available. If you have done so in the past you can still conveniently register as an Active Member when renewing your AAN membership. Either way, I encourage you to participate in the community that we are creating. 

The Pennsylvania Neurological Society was formed in 2006, under the guidance of Dr. Brad Klein to advocate for neurologists in our state and provide a way to communicate with one another regarding the challenges of our profession. Pennsylvania is a rather large state with widely dispersed cities as well as a large rural population and involvement in our Society is one way to make us less isolated from each other.

Considering the whirlwind of professional changes that have been occurring just since our founding (the alphabet soup of EHR's, PQRS, MOC, MACRA, PDMP) and changes in the competitive nature of Neurology practice (ACO's, Medical Neighborhoods, employed vs. Private Practice, market exclusivity), our involvement in, and need to control the standards of, neurological care has never been more immediate. 

A major goal of the Pennsylvania Neurological Society is to be relevant to you in your practice of neurology. To that end we need to understand what issues are important to you and what you think would be helpful to you. We hope you will fill out our brief survey.

Expanding the scope and membership of the Pennsylvania Neurological Society will also help us with advocacy efforts and to influence policies that affect neurologists by representing all neurology voices on the state level with how these policies are created and implemented. Neurologists are already doing this on the federal level. For example, when the United States government decided to develop Quality Measures the American Academy of Neurology assumed the task of creating these measures for neurological disorders. Neurologists took a direct role in determining what measures were meaningful and practical to perform. We are having a direct say for what we will be held accountable. Through the Pennsylvania Neurological Society, we will do this on the state level for issues such as scope of practice, telemedicine coverage, and prior authorization reform.

Another way we are seeking to be relevant to our new membership is to provide a community for Pennsylvania neurologists and neurological practitioners where we can share our challenges and work to overcome them together centered around our updated website. We hope the website becomes a forum where we can explore information on current issues affecting us, find resources for our practices and patients, share thoughts with other neurologists, and brainstorm solutions to our problems together taking advantage of the great resource of intellectual talent that neurologists possess. We will also make more available education and CME opportunities that are occurring statewide.

We recognize it is a challenge finding time to devote to a group and that you likely have memberships and subscriptions to multiple organizations and journals and must pick and choose which are worth the expense. As you've already read, the next step that we are taking to address these challenges is to eliminate dues to belong to our Society. With regards to the challenge of time, we hope to make involvement with your ideas or opinions on our website convenient and send electronic newsletters and email alerts with links that will help you connect with us in an easy and efficient manner.

In summary, to be successful for you and all who practice neurology in Pennsylvania we will focus our efforts on the aspects of the Society that our membership finds useful while at the same time broadening your horizons and engaging you more in the larger neurology community. This briefsurvey will help us understand your needs better and determine what aspects of the Pennsylvania Neurological Society you would find worth supporting.

Thank you for your time.  We look forward to a greater era of neurology integration and collegiality across Pennsylvania  

Sincerely,

Anthony May, M.D. 

President, Pennsylvania Neurological Society