PO Box 496 Rhinebeck, NY 12572
845-205-2750
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THE PRESIDENT'S VOICE
IMPORTANT NOVEMBER UPDATE
11/8/22
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you to all who attended the Dutchess County Medical Society’s annual fall dinner and meeting held inside the tent at the Grandview on a glorious Fall evening! It was a wonderful night of camaraderie, cocktails, dinner and dancing. We had a fabulous panel of experts on Health Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Our panel included:
Dr. Livia Santiago-Rosado, Dutchess County Health Commissioner
Dr. Brenda Ayers, Assoc. VPMA, Vassar Brothers Medical Center & Director Health Equity, Nuvance Health
Adyna Gamboa, Director of Workforce and Career Development, Nuvance Health
Jeffery Fox, CEO, Abilities First
Matilde Roman, Senior Vice President Chief Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer, Westchester Medical Center
The panel was engaging, informative and created great discussion among our physicians. Dr. Santiago-Rosado gave us an update on the mobile medical bus that will be used to visit low-income areas for vaccines and medical treatment. It is an exciting project soon to come to fruition. She also told us that Covid in Dutchess County is moderate, and that we should be aware of polio. We need to make sure children are vaccinated, vaccinated, vaccinated!
Zina Cary, Vice President of Legislative Affairs for the Medical Society of the State of New York gave us a summary of MSSNY’s legislative affairs and plans. We also heard from our newest sponsor, Reliant Real Estate Management. Mr. Kris Benson, Chief Investment Officer, gave a short presentation on investment opportunities. We also thank the United Group of Companies and Mr. Keith Axelrod, Senior Managing Director of Finance, for their continued generous sponsorship.
I am hoping everyone will get out or has already voted. The DCMS placed an ad in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Sunday, 10/30 and Wednesday, 11/2 asking the Governor to not sign the “Wrongful Death” bill.
We have been working with Adam Morey, Managing Director, Public Affairs & Advocacy, J Strategies, in preparing an op-ed which we will soon publish.
There is a growing shortage of physicians dedicated to maternity care. In New York, this situation will become worse if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs a bill that will incentivize more lawsuits against doctors and hospitals, and raise liability premiums by a whopping 45%. It is disheartening that, at a time when we desperately need to support robust access to reproductive care, lawmakers have advanced legislation that could drive obstetricians and gynecologists to practice elsewhere.
Strained by the pandemic, many nurses and physicians are retiring early. This is a pressing concern for OBGNYs. Trends suggest people are waiting longer to start families. Later pregnancies increase the need for additional prenatal care from competent specialists.
Rather than working with the medical profession to balance the liability climate, the state legislature passed a measure that will encourage litigation and entice larger settlements – with plaintiffs’ lawyers collecting 33% of each verdict, cashing in on the new law and their clients’ tragedies. Though well intended at its core, the open-ended bill – which increases damages payable in wrongful death lawsuits – will amplify the liability crisis, allowing near-unlimited payouts.
An actuarial analysis finds that annual liability premiums for medical professionals are projected to increase by 40-45%. In some parts of New York, this means an additional cost of $60,000 a year for OBGYNs. That’s enough to deter anyone from entering the field or practicing obstetrics in this state.
To ensure access to care for all New Yorkers, Gov. Hochul should veto the measure and call on lawmakers to craft a more thoughtful and balanced piece of legislation that compensates victims of reckless actions yet deters opportunistic trial attorney’s – and avoids increasing the burden on doctors and hospitals in the process.
Thank you all for your help and interest in keeping medicine at cutting edge in Dutchess County and helping our patients and community.
Happy Thanksgiving you, your staff and families.
Adele El Kareh, MD, PhD
President, Dutchess County Medical Society
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THE DUTCHESS COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY'S
FALL DINNER -
A ROUSING SUCCESS!
JOIN THE MEDICAL SOCIETY TODAY!
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A Mission to Heal the Scars of War -
by Dr. Manoj T. Abraham
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This medical mission to Ukraine was a collaborative effort led by me as chair of FACE TO FACE, the humanitarian arm of the American Academy of Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. We partnered with Razom, the third largest Ukrainian aid organization based in the US - one of the founders of Razom, Mariya Soroka accompanied us as an administrator on this trip. We also partnered with INgenious, an organization set up by Ivanna Nebor, a surgeon originally from Ukraine, who set up this organization to help doctors in Ukraine - Ivanna was also on this trip. Finally, we partnered with Healing The Children NorthEast (HTCNE) - I have led many medical missions with HTCNE and sit on the Board. We had 10 surgeons on this trip, all from the NY/NJ area, some of them originally from Ukraine. We also had ancillary staff such as nurses, a surgical technician, and administrators to help with logistics.
Given the war, you can't fly into Ukraine, so the team met up first in Krakow, Poland and then took a bus across the border into Ukraine - this was about a 12 hour bus journey, including several hours to cross security at border in Ukraine (this was with a special "green corridor" arranged for our team - there were trucks stuck at the border waiting for days to cross). We traveled to Ivano Frankivsk, a city near the Western border of Ukraine - this was due to safety reasons in case we needed to evacuate our team quickly. We worked at the Regional Hospital of Ivano Frankivsk with the official invitation from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and the Hospital.
Our main partner at the hospital was Dr. Natalia Komashko - she organized the effort to help provide training to the local medical staff with over 130+ doctors from all over Ukraine in attendance and the surgical procedures live streamed to a conference room and with the surgeons mic'd up in the operating room so that we could describe in detail each step we were doing. We operated on a total of 34 patients, including some very complex cases that took 10 to 12 hours each, including microvascular free tissue transfer using the fibula bone from the leg to reconstruct missing parts of the jaw and 3-D custom patient specific implants to replace missing parts of the facial skeleton. We worked incredibly long days, getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning and not returning to our hotel until 10 or 11pm at night. We worked in collaboration with our Ukrainian colleagues on all of the cases, and they will continue care for these patients. At the end of the week, there was a farewell ceremony with the Hospital heads, regional governor's office and parliamentarians (similar to congressmen) who were very appreciative and thanked us for our efforts. We estimate we provided over 1 million dollars of donated medical supplies and services on this trip.
Despite the security concerns (sandbags and metal anti-tank barriers set up a street intersections and around important buildings, frequent emergency alerts and air raid sirens), we were able to successfully carry out this mission in partnership with our Ukrainian colleagues to take care of many patients with severe facial injuries from the war, providing state of the art care which would have otherwise not been available to them. Our team was incredibly impressed by the resiliency of the Ukrainian people, with many of the patients intent on returning to the war effort despite their severe injuries. We were clearly all exhausted at the end of the week, but it was an incredibly gratifying experience, and we hope to continue our collaboration and efforts going forward.
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MEET THE MEDICAL SOCIETY'S
NEWEST SPONSOR!
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KRIS BENSON
Chief Investment Officer,
Reliant Real Estate Management, LLC
Overview of Services:
● Reliant Real Estate Management offers institutional quality self-storage investments to accredited investors. We purchased our first facility in 2007 and we are currently a top 25 self-storage operator in the United States. We are the 17th largest self-storage operator in the United States with a current portfolio of 79 properties, 46,000 units, $1+billion assets under management.
Below is our track record:
a. 38 Properties Sold, $0 of investor principal lost
b. 33.8% IRR average project level returns on 38 sold properties with a 2.57 equity
multiple.
c. 34% average net operating income growth over asset holding period.
Contact Information for Kris:
● Name: Kris Benson
● Phone Number: (770) 609 -8276 ext 1005
● Bio
a. Kris Benson is the Chief Investment Officer, part of the investment committee, and manages investor relations for Reliant Real Estate Management. In 2021
Reliant was named the 27th largest self-storage operator in the US. Over the past 5 years the Reliant team has been responsible for over $1,000,000,000 in self-storage transactions across the southeastern U.S.
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Credit Card Processing Services |
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BPS is a leading provider of the most advanced and competitive credit card processing services locally and nationally for over twenty years. We specialize in working with businesses as a partner, to provide products and services that meet your financial needs and save you money at the same time. An outstanding reputation for excellent customer and technical service with expertise in a very challenging industry.
Preferred Partner with the Dutchess County Medical Society
GUARANTEED LOWEST PROCESSING RATES
GUARANTEED LOWEST PRICING FOR AMERICAN EXPRESS
ELIMINATE UNNECESSARY FEES
MERCHANT STATEMENT REVIEWS TO ELIMINATE ANY RATE INCREASES AND UNNECESSARY FEES ADDED OVER TIME TO CONTINUE SAVING YOUR BUSINESS MONEY
SUPPORTS ALL PAYMENT TYPES INCLUDING CREDIT, DEBIT, EMV, APPLE PAY,
GOOGLE PAY, ANDROID PAY, SANSUNG PAY AND OTHER MOBILE WALLETS,
QR CODE ORDERING & PAYMENTS, WE CHAT PAY, ALL PAY
STATE OF THE ART FREE EQUIPMENT
WIRELESS, PAY-AT-THE-TABLE, INTERNET SOLUTIONS, CUSTOM GIFT & LOYALTY CARDS,
ATM MACHINES, WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT, CASH ADVANCES, BUSINESS LOANS
FREE POS SYSTEM PROGRAM
HOSPITALITY, BAR & RESTAURANT, QUICK SERVICE DELIVERY, RETAIL, LIQUOR STORE,
CONVENIENCE STORE, CLOTHING STORE, SALON & SPA AND MORE CUSTOMIZED SYSTEMS
AUTHORIZE.NET PAYMENT SOLUTIONS THAT INTEGRATE SEAMLESSLY AND EASILY WITH YOUR EXISTING COMPUTER OR WEBSITE
POINT-TO-POINT (P2PE) ENCRYPTION SOLUTION THAT PREVENTS CARDHOLDER DATA FROM ENTERING YOUR PAYMENT ENVIRONMENT TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS FROM HARMFUL AND COSTLY DATA BREACHES
FULL TOKENIZATION THAT REPLACES DATA WITH A RANDOM ALPHANUMERIC VALUE WHICH PROVIDES AN EXTRA LAYER OF SECURITY TO PROTECT SENSITIVE DATA
FREE PAPER PROGRAM
ON-SITE INSTALLATION AND TRAINIng
24/7 365 DAYS LOCAL SERVICE
References available from well-known local merchants for over two decades
A TEAM THAT WORKS FOR YOU IN THE BEST INTEREST OF YOUR BUSINESS!
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MARYANN B. TOMPKINS
914-475-1224
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Business & Personal Insurance Services |
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How We Can Help You - Sellers Insurance has specialized in insurance for physicians, their practices, and their families for over 75 years. We understand your personal and business circumstances and can help you make the right decisions to protect what you’ve worked so hard for.
Your Benefits as a Dutchess County Medical Society Member - You have access to members-only insurance programs, including high-quality disability income and disability overhead, which offer reasonable premiums and protect you in your specialty. If you become disabled and need to make a claim, we provide all claims service in-house, which allows for more personalized, prompt, and accurate claims payment.
We Can Also Assist You with - We can also assist you with Business Insurance (including Property & General Liability packages, Workers Compensation, Business Auto, Employment Practices Liability Insurance, Cyber Insurance, NYS Disability Benefits Law/Paid Family Leave Coverage) and Personal Insurance (including Life Insurance, Long Term Care, Home, Auto, Umbrella, Boat, etc.)
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Charles J. Sellers & Co., Inc.
PO Box 460, 4300 Camp Road
Athol Springs, NY 14010
716.627.5400/800.333.5440
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REAL ESTATE OPPORTUNITIES
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Keith Axelrod offers real estate investment opportunities. Local investors including Drs. Russell Tigges, Scott Hayworth, William Colman, Gary Nathanson, Fatos Rugova, Diane Kraus, Chris Sclafani, Stuart Weinberger, Kavita Aggarwal and Manoj Abraham are just a few you may know. Permission to state their name was granted by each with no compensation to them.
$13.9 Million Dollars was recently raised from 64 investors for our senior housing project in Stuart, Florida and $14 Million Dollars from over 90 investors for our senior housing project in Sarasota, Florida. Both are managed by The United Group. Pictured below is our senior housing project in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Currently a multifamily housing apartment project in the Albany, New York Capital District area is almost ready to begin construction with an opportunity to invest.
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American Medical Association ADVOCACY |
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ACT NOW to help avert 9.75% Medicare payment cut!
In what amounts to a “perfect storm” of payment cuts going into effect on January 1, 2022, physicians face the following stack of Medicare financial hits:
· Expiration of the current reprieve from the repeatedly extended 2 percent sequester stemming from the Budget Control Act of 2011. Congress originally scheduled this policy to sunset in 2021 but it will now continue into 2030.
· Imposition of a 4 percent Statutory PAYGO sequester resulting from passage of the American Rescue Plan Act. Should lawmakers fail to act, it will mark the first time that Congress has failed to waive Statutory PAYGO.
· Expiration of the Congressionally enacted 3.75 percent temporary increase in the Medicare physician fee schedule (PFS) conversion factor to avoid payment cuts associated with budget neutrality adjustments tied to PFS policy changes.
· A statutory freeze in annual Medicare PFS updates under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) that is scheduled to last until 2026, when updates resume at a rate of 0.25% a year indefinitely, a figure well below the rate of medical or consumer price index inflation.
This would result in a combined 9.75 percent payment cut on January 1! And all of this comes at a time when physician practices are still recovering from the emotional and financial impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency. It’s time to give our nation’s physicians the peace of mind they deserve as they continue to fight on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic without having to worry if their practices will survive these potentially catastrophic cuts.
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Tax & Accounting Services |
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We are Certified Public Accountants, here locally for all of your Tax and Accounting needs. Serroukas & Badat is a Preferred Partner of the Dutchess County Medical Society and counts numerous physicians and medical groups as clients. Members of the Medical Society are eligible for a no charge consultation to discuss your accounting needs, make sure to mention you are a member of Dutchess County Medical Society when you call.
4290 Albany Post Rd, Hyde Park, NY 12538
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Healthcare Worker Covid Vaccination Mandate |
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New York State passed a Covid vaccine mandate requiring physician or other professional to be vaccinated if they provide care in an Article 28 facility (such as a physician with privileges at a hospital, or who rounds at a nursing home). However, a judge has put a temporary restraining order on enforcing this mandate because it did not include religious exemptions - a final decision is expected prior to October 12. In the interim, please follow the requirements of your individual institution.
The vaccination mandate does not apply to the staff of physicians who work in private practice, assuming that they do not go to an Article 28 facility. Also, the AMA has indicated that the rules announced by President Biden do not apply to private physician offices AMA statement on Administration’s COVID-19 plan | American Medical Association (ama-assn.org). However, for larger practices with more then 100 employees, staff may be required to vaccinate based upon a separate Biden/OSHA proposal that businesses with more than 100 employees are required to have their employees be vaccinated.
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We’ve got the Space You Need - Welcome to Guardian Self Storage, the leading storage solution for businesses in the Hudson Valley. We offer a wide selection of room sizes, 24/7 access, hassle-free drive up locations for easy moving, temperature controlled rooms and traditional units, a variety of moving and packing supplies and free use of our truck (some restrictions apply).
Save 10% on Self Storage - Dutchess County Medical Society members receive a 10% discount on storage. Save while you gain more space. Store your medical records, equipment or household items.
Rest Easier Knowing Your Belongings Are Safe - When you choose Guardian Self Storage, you can rely on safety. Security cameras, strategic security lighting and gated access are in place at all locations.
No Long Term Commitments - You can choose just how long you want to keep your items conveniently stored away.
14 convenient locations in Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties
Wappingers Falls and New Windsor offices are open on Sundays
or call 1-877-416-0606 to find out more!
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DCMS Sponsorship Opportunities |
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Interested in reaching over 2500 local medical providers and supporting our local Medical Society?
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