CQU and SVU Need Help Influencing California Florida Medicare Carrier

SVU has been a vocal advocate for ensuring minimum entry level competence of those individuals performing noninvasive vascular studies for more than a decade. We now have an opportunity to significantly impact the quality of vascular testing in California. SVU representatives, in concert with the Coalition for Quality in Ultrasound (CQU), have been communicating with Dr. Bruce Quinn, the Medical Director of National Heritage Insurance Company, the California Florida Medicare carrier. We wish to ensure that only appropriate and medically necessary noninvasive vascular testing services are received by Medicare beneficiaries and are paid for under the Medicare Program. In the very near future, Dr. Quinn will be considering instituting the policy of requiring either credentialing of the personnel performing the technical component services and/or the accreditation of the laboratories in which the services are provided. We ask that you help us with this effort by offering your support of this policy to Dr. Quinn. His address is:

Bruce Quinn, M.D.
Contractor Medical Director
National Heritage Insurance Company (NHIC)
1077 7th Street Los Angeles, CA 90017

Letters should be brief, offering your support of this policy and include a personalized sentence or two as to why you believe this requirment is important. A letter sent to Dr. Quinn from SVU (MSWord/94k) is available for reveiw and can be used as a guide. Or, if you wish, contact me by email and I will be happy to forward a letter template that can be quickly modified. The next two weeks will be critical in our attempts to demonstrate broad support for this personnel credentialing and/or accreditation policy. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions and I would ask you also send me an email that you have written a letter to Dr. Quinn. Please take a few minutes today and do this for your profession and our patients. Thank you very much.

Bill Schroedter, BS RVT FSVU
Chair, SVU Government Relations Committee
bschroedter@qualityvascular.com