Acceptance Address APMA House of Delegates Washington, DC. Prospering with a New Spirit of Cooperation April 17, 2005

Harold B. Glickman, DPM President American Podiatric Medical Association 2005 – 2006

Harold B. Glickman, DPM President American Podiatric Medical Association 2005 – 2006

Mr. Speaker, members of the House of Delegates, members of the Board of Trustees, past presidents, staff, and honored guests, it is truly an honor for me to stand before you as president of the American Podiatric Medical Association.

The journey that I have taken to reach this point in my life did not begin 10 years ago when I was first elected to our Board of Trustees. Rather, it began those many years ago when I was graduated from the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine. Since that time, I have witnessed firsthand the amazing growth our profession has enjoyed and how that growth has been dependent upon the work of this association. APMA has been a driving force, catapulting the care of the foot and ankle to the forefront of modern medicine.

During those early years, there were few podiatric surgical residencies and limited hospital privileges for members of our profession. Contrast that situation with our profession today, with multiple-year residencies and podiatric physicians on the staffs of hospitals throughout the country. The progress we enjoy nowadays came about because we worked together, united in our goal to provide the best possible foot and ankle care to our patients. APMA, through the conjunction of its leadership and its membership, has reached and surpassed goals that were once considered lofty at best.

With programs such as Project 2000, led by past presidents Terry Albright and Marc Lenet, we have elevated the educational standards in our colleges to those of our allopathic and osteopathic colleagues. We have done this behind a united front, working together to ensure the success of our profession and our livelihood.

The same can be said about my tenure on the Board of Trustees. Ten years ago, we had no laptops or listserves, there was no blast e-mail, and things like a CAC or a PIAC meeting were unheard of. We were fragmented, and communication came on an infrequent basis. Your Board and leadership have worked hard during this past decade to improve our communication and leadership skills. Utilizing the gifts of talent, desire, technology, and innovation, APMA today keeps its membership apprised of every issue that touches the heart of our profession. I am proud to have been a part of this positive change in our association, a change that happened because of a spirit of cooperation and a united front dedicated to making things better.

With this new spirit of cooperation, I hope to stand before our House of Delegates next year and become the first president of this association to have legislation specific to podiatric medicine passed by the US Congress. Under the leadership of Trustee Ronald Jensen and Ms. Faye Frankfort, director of legislative advocacy, our Legislative Committee has broken new ground in our dealings with government. In conjunction with our Podiatric Political Action Committee, our legislation in Congress will ensure Title XIX coverage for podiatric services to the citizens of this country. I will do whatever it takes to guarantee the passage of this legislation. I will go to Capitol Hill whenever the opportunity arises to lobby for our cause. This week, during our Leadership Conference, members of our association will flood the halls of Congress to advocate on behalf of this legislation. Our support is unwavering, and together we will succeed.

Also in this spirit, I am very aware of the special situation now occurring in New York. If we have to send a member of our Board of Trustees to testify in favor of podiatric services for Medicaid recipients in New York—as we did in Ohio several years ago—we will. We will work closely with the New York State Podiatric Medical Association for a positive outcome.

It was the 2002 House of Delegates that asked the Board of Trustees to look into antidiscrimination litigation on behalf of podiatric physicians and their patients. After an exhaustive search for the proper law firm, future APMA Treasurer Ross Taubman and Trustee Mike King settled on the JoBeth Halper Litigation Group and the Bonnett, Fairbourn, Friedman, and Balint, PC, firm. There has now been a multimillion-dollar settlement with CIGNA. This equates to about $100 per participating podiatric physician on the CIGNA panel. The naysayers said it couldn’t be done, but with hard work and by spending hours and hours with attorneys, APMA did it. We did it together, for our members.

I fully support the resolution recommending that each member who receives a check from this settlement forward it to the APMA Educational Foundation Scholarship Program. It’s an easy way to support our efforts to offer scholarships to the most deserving students in our colleges of podiatric medicine. The challenge is there, so let’s do it together.

Special thanks go out to both Dr. Taubman and Dr. King for all the time they put into this charge, as did Dr. Nancy Parsley and Ms. Tyler Whitaker of our dedicated APMA staff. There is reason to believe that the success with CIGNA could lead to similar victories with other insurance carriers. Last fall, Dr. Taubman gave a deposition in our litigation with the Blue Cross–Blue Shield Association. We will monitor these proceedings and keep membership informed as events unfold.

When I first became a member of the Board of Trustees, nondues income, generated by our Department of Development, was a mere $100,000 a year. The department was spending 60 percent of its time raising nondues income for APMA and 40 percent of its time working for the Fund for Podiatric Medical Education. Today, that has all changed—for the better. The Fund for Podiatric Medical Education has been absorbed into the APMA Educational Foundation, staffed by the Department of Development and Corporate Relations and overseen by the Executive Committee of your APMA Board of Trustees. I can assure all of you that we will begin to raise the bar for our scholarship program. To that end, I’m happy to announce that a new $25,000 endowment has just been received from the Virginia Podiatric Residency Foundation/Art Coster Scholarship. We will not turn our backs on the scholarship program. Our students are the future of this profession, and we want them to succeed in every way possible.

Regarding development, I’m happy to report that, with the leadership expertise of Past President Ronald Lepow and Trustee Kathleen Stone, our current Development Committee chair, the 2004 Annual Scientific Meeting in Boston brought in nearly $1 million. This is a landmark achievement for our association, but we will not rest there. We will continue to find new sources of nondues income in order to fund programs that will benefit our members the most.

The Health Policy Committee continues to shine, monitoring the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Relative Value Update Committee (RUC), and durable medical equipment. Through an RUC survey conducted in conjunction with a group of orthopedic surgeons, the committee is also working on a new code for extracorporeal shock-wave therapy. Practice expense, the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, and orthoses are just some of the issues that Health Policy closely examines. I think we owe a tremendous amount of thanks to President Lloyd Smith for all of the hard work he has done chairing this committee for the past 6 years and to Dr. Taubman, who took over this year and hasn’t missed a beat. Thanks to both of you.

The Health Systems Committee is also out in front of issues involving private insurance carriers. As I said earlier, the settlement with CIGNA cannot be taken lightly. This is a momentous undertaking by the Board of Trustees. Who would have thought that APMA could take on one of the largest insurance carriers in the country and win a multimillion-dollar settlement? Your Board did it with your direction. Everyone in this room should be proud, because we did it together.

Our Public Education and Information Committee continues to work hard on our behalf. Trustee Joe Caporusso has a terrific committee that has just completed a successful media tour in New York City. President Lloyd Smith participated, along with two committee members: Dr. Marlene Reid from Illinois and Dr. Jane Anderson from North Carolina. This year brought more success as the diabetes campaign, spearheaded by spokesperson James Brown, urged Americans to “Knock Their Socks Off” in an effort to enhance detection of this disease. Dr. Caporusso and Public Relations Director George Tzamaras are doing a great job.

Today, I can tell you that our association is as strong as it has ever been. We have the highest total membership in our history—more than 11,000 members. The Annual Scientific Meeting is now regarded as the best foot and ankle symposium in the world. I am proud to be a part of these success stories, and I am gratified that, by working together with our members, affiliates, and colleges, we can accomplish these goals.

It is clear by now that my heart is with unity and working together. I am under no illusions, however. I realize that with 11,000 members and many different affiliated organizations, we won’t always agree on every issue that comes before us. But if there are issues that tug at the heart of this association, let’s sit down and talk. Let’s see if we can compromise; let’s work together as we have so successfully before.

More than 40 years ago, an African-American minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a mere ten blocks from where I stand today. He proclaimed that he had a vision—a vision that every man, woman, and child, no matter what his or her race, color, or creed, would live free and be treated equally and fairly by the citizens and the government of these great United States.

Today, as I stand before this House of Delegates and our membership, I too have a vision for the American Podiatric Medical Association. I have a vision that we will continue to work together—members, affiliates, and staff—with the goal of providing the best, most state-of-the-art medical care for our patients. Working together, we can—and must—do it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and members of the House. God bless you all.